Okay, I think we can get going with the next presentation. Once again, I'm Ryan Brinkman, the U.S. Automotive Equity Research Analyst at JP Morgan. Thanks for joining us for our next presentation, which is Seating Supplier and only seating supplier, Adient. We are happy to have with us here, Doug Del Grosso, President and Chief Executive Officer, as well as Jerome Dorlack, our Chief Financial Officer, and on the end, Mark Oswald, Vice President, Corporate Treasurer. I'm gonna turn it over to Doug, to make some remarks at the podium, and then we'll engage in a chat. Thanks so much.
Great.
Thanks.
Good morning, thank you for participating in the session today. We have just a few slides, kind of to set the stage. Some of the themes, I think we'll be discussing as we go through the Q&A. On the heels of our third quarter earnings call, just a quick summary. Pretty strong quarter for us, stronger than expected. That's primarily a result of volume that was higher than expected. I would say overall performance within the company, better than we had expected. We returned $65 million to the shareholders, strong cash liquidity position, and we anticipate a positive trend as we move through the balance of the year. We hit on a couple themes. I'm sure we'll be talking about it, that are relevant to seating systems in the automotive space.
There's kind of five themes that have emerged that are really shaping the way the industry is transforming as we move forward. I think everyone's talked about what happened in the Shanghai Auto Show, the emergence of the domestic Chinese EV players and how they're changing the interior of the vehicle. This is just kind of a summary slide of what we see developing in content per vehicle, that's dramatically different than what we've seen in the past. We're seeing a lot of safety, comfort, integration into seating systems. If you just simplify it, particularly as automakers are moving to Level 3 autonomy, as the seat is being reconfigured in different locations in the vehicle. As a result, they're focused on comfort, but they're also focused on safety, as it's not in the traditional forward-facing.
We see a lot of technology being integrated into seating, which we think is very positive for the company as we move forward. Our approach is maybe different than some of our competitors. We think from a vertical integration standpoint, we're well-positioned. Historically, we've been vertically integrated on the hardware side, trim, foam, in addition to just-in-time delivery of our product. As these new technologies and new demands of our customers and the consumer evolve, we're also looking towards partnerships to develop next-generation technology. As I mentioned, we're looking for strategic partners in safety, in ADAS, connectivity, thermal comfort, and lumbar and massage comfort systems. We've been executing this strategy for a while. This isn't something we just created most recently. We've been working on this for the last few years.
We have products in the market right now. Probably the best example is our zero-gravity seat we jointly developed with Autoliv, that's in the market as we speak. One of the emerging developments we have is with Gentherm for comfort systems. It's utilizing some new technology in UltraThin. This is a combination of urethane foam and suspension systems with Gentherm's next-generation ClimateSense, which is thermal and lumbar and massage systems. We're working together with them to jointly develop that, integrate that in a very cost-effective way for seating systems. This is preferred approach for us in this particular example, and we'll talk in the Q&A if questions come up about vertical integration. It's a bit of a slippery slope.
Too much vertical integration drives a lot of capital and engineering investment, which we don't think is necessarily healthy for our business. The pillars of our strategy going forward, you know, we're very focused on automotive seating. That's what we do. It's a homogeneous product that we, you know, think about in our portfolio. Driving operational excellence has been a hallmark of our back to basics approach to business. We think, you know, these two elements are leading us to diversify our customer base and continue to be a leader in seating systems. We won't spend much time today talking about it, but we have in the past about the direction we're taking the company from a sustainability standpoint. With that, that concludes the formal presentation, so we'll open it up for Q&A.
You know, we're asking all suppliers at the conference a few questions, and, and one of which is, is on demand. After demand has tracked quite a bit stronger than it was expected so far this year, particularly in the United States. How would you rate currently the strength of the different economies and end markets that are most important for your company? What is your outlook going forward?
Yeah. I'll start out, and Jerome and Mark can add into it. You know, I think generally speaking, the market's much improved, but that's from a pretty low base. It's probably best to answer it just, you know, quickly going, you know, around the map. If we start in the U.S., we think that's probably our most stable market right now. Stability to us is not just gross volume. Certainly, that's good, but what we experienced during supply chain disruption as a just-in-time manufacturer, with a lot of start and stop, that was very disruptive to our work pattern in our plants and very costly. Supply chains are more normalized. Demand is relatively high, and that translates into a relatively good environment.
Right now, you know, assuming there's no, you know, external disruption to that, we anticipate that market continuing to be relatively stable for us. I would say, similar in Europe, bit of a surprise. You know, we entered our fiscal year and going to be highly disrupted because of the war in the Ukraine. It was, as things tended to, again, normalize, energy prices came down, still a highly inflationary market, demand did start to modestly increase, and production schedules became normal. Again, I think, you know, with the exception of external disruption to the market, we anticipate Europe being relatively stable in the near term. A big portion of our business is in China. That's probably the most, I'll say, you know, disrupted market right now.
I don't think I really need to go into the economic environment in China. It's relatively, I would say the automotive market is a bit more stable than the rest of the Chinese market, and that is largely influenced by the number of vehicles that are being exported out into Europe. I think it's going to be interesting to see that trade-off between exports in China, the recovery of the domestic market, and its impact on Europe. Longer term, we're relatively confident in the China market being a strong growth market for the company.
Interesting. Thank you. You know, second question is, is really more around supply. Where would you say that we stand here in the middle of 2023, in terms of the semiconductor chip shortage, port delays, and, and the various other supply chain bottlenecks that impacted the level and stability of customer production in recent years? What is your outlook going forward?
Yes, I, I can take that one. I mean, in terms of supply, I mean, it's greatly improved versus where it was sitting here last year. I mean, if you go through kind of port delays, they're, I mean, generally nonexistent at this point. If you look at, you know, what we would call kind of freight that's around the world on some of the ocean freight, containers and things like that, they've generally reverted to where they were kind of pre-COVID levels. Those are all positive indicators, and those are generally all the freight lanes that we see, whether they're transatlantic or transpacific.
On the semiconductor side, there is still some prioritization that takes place with some customers, so there's some rationing, where they're directing, you know, some of the higher, higher-end chips, some of the higher-end memory chips, still towards, higher content vehicles. We see that, you know, with a few customers in particular, but generally, that condition, I would say, is greatly improved as well. Nowhere near what it was in the peak, so you know, probably in the 90+% range of attainment.
I think the, you know, the biggest kind of bottleneck, you know, if we, if we do enter into a, what I'd call a fully unconstrained, you know, if we wanted to run, if I take the, the U.S. as an example, if we really wanted to run at, you know, a healthy environment of a 17 million build, what would be the constraint? It'd probably get back to labor again. We talked a lot about that a year ago, being, you know, that being kind of the topping constraint. Still think that would be the constraint here, but, you know, at the moment, you know, I don't, I don't think that's really popping up because we're teetering between kind of demand versus supply in the U.S. at the moment.
You look at the vehicle park kind of going up, we're, you know, somewhere in a healthy level, I think. Generally in a good condition, I'd say.
That sounds much improved versus the answer last year, though the year before. Sorry. Next, I wanted to ask on sort of the backdrop for, you know, operating margin for suppliers generally. You know, EBITDA margin for the suppliers we cover averaged 11% last year. Maybe it'll hit 12% this year, but pre-pandemic, it was more like 13%, 14%. You know, considering all of the different, you know, macro and industry factors that roll up into the backdrop for supplier margin, as mentioned, you know, but also timing of, you know, commodity and non-commodity inflation and related recoveries, needed spending on R&D, et cetera, to support industry change.
You know, where do you think we are on the path to the normalization of the, the general backdrop for supplier margin? Or given, you know, structurally higher input costs and related recoveries, are we maybe looking at a new normal of supplier margin, where maybe performance metrics like return on invested capital, et cetera, might be more useful to gauge performance?
Yeah, I mean, I think supplier... I mean, I can't speak for the broader supplier margin. I think if you look at Adient's roadmap for supplier margin, I think we've been very, you know, kind of transparent in terms of where we see our trajectory heading towards. You know, this year-... You know, we started off at kind of, call it a 5.2 EBITDA guide. You know, we've recently taken that up to in the 5.3 range, somewhere in there. You know, we've always said, you know, we think we can get that, and we have confidence we can get that kind of in the 8%-8.5% range. For us, you know, there's still room to expand our margins, really driven by a couple of factors.
One is, you know, industry volume is still well below kind of that normalized 90 million light vehicle build level. As that water rises across the industry, I mean, not only for us, that should be something that benefits all suppliers. You know, as you think about industry margins, that should be something that, you know, I would think would benefit all suppliers across the industry. For us, and again, I think this would benefit the broader supply base, there is still costs that need to be worked through the system. There's still energy in Europe, while it's retreated, is still, you know, nowhere near what would have been, call it, kind of, the 2021 levels.
You know, we've worked through a lot of, some of the, the contractual topics for the pricing topics, but there's still, you know, some work to be done there. There's still kind of timing associated with some of the, the metal prices and the stability that's in there. Just I'd say some hangover from what were some of the COVID level dynamics that are in there. Again, I think those are things that all suppliers are still dealing with. In particular, to Adient, on our roadmap, you know, there are some of these kind of what I would call metal contracts that we've talked about before, that really roll off in the 2025, 2026 time frame.
That's the last piece to kind of bridge our margin gap that gets us to kind of that 8%-8.5% range. That's not necessarily industry specific, but more what I would call on our, our roadmap.
Very helpful. Thank you. Now, I noted that you recently reported much stronger than expected fiscal third quarter earnings, and while those earnings were helped by an insurance settlement, even after backing that out, we calculated that your Adjusted EBITDA beat consensus by 19% versus the average supplier, which beat by still strong 11% this quarter. It comes too, despite your sort of disproportionate exposure, right, to China, where production tracked only slightly better than expected in comparison to North America and Europe, where it tracked much better.
While you still benefited from the same macro and industry improvements as other suppliers, maybe a little bit less, perhaps, you know, you know, in combination with that bigger beat, does that maybe suggest that, you know, more of the beat was driven by maybe some of these company-specific self-help factors that are under your control? You know, how much of that beat and raise would you say was driven by the macro versus, you know, actions that you specifically are taking and which might carry forward into future periods, regardless of which way the industry or macro goes?
Yeah. I can start. If you just, you know, bifurcate the issues, I, I would just say volume and stability is a real catalyst for our business. It allows us to drive a lot of productivity in our business that without it, you know, we can't achieve. We can't drive productivity in our plants if we have instable or unstable volume scenarios. So volume helps, and it's particularly painful as a just-in-time supplier, and we pointed this out in the past when we had these disrupted schedules where our customers were running Monday, Tuesday, they ran out of semiconductors on Wednesday, Thursday, restarted Friday and then worked into the weekend, and then we had to incur premium costs. So in that environment, self-help is very difficult other than negotiating with our customers to get some sort of relief on, on that disruption.
When that stabilizes, you know, that, that creates the opportunity for us to do a lot of things internally, separate from commercial discussions with our customers to improve the profitability. That's really, I think, what was reflected in the third quarter, is, is that environment was a healthy environment for us, and it was reflected in our results.
That's helpful. Thanks. You know, one element of the full year guide that tracked better was free cash flow, right? You know, improved to $275 million versus the earlier outlook for $215 million, and, you know, the preceding two years kind of rounded to 0, right? Nice improvement there. I wanted to ask if the improvement might have any impact on the pace or cadence of share repurchases, given that when the program was first announced, it seemed to be funded more by, you know, cash on hand received in conjunction with the China JV reorganization, but now is supported by ongoing cash flows.
Yeah, great, great question, Ryan, and when you look at it, you're absolutely right. Clearly, the more earnings we make, obviously that converts into free cash flow. We're gonna have the opportunity to return that to shareholders. You know, we've been very, you know, working very hard over the last two years just in terms of stabilizing the calls for cash. If you recall, two years ago, you know, the focus on capital allocation at that time was really deleveraging the balance sheet. We had a target leverage ratio, call it 1.5 to 2x . We took actions to make sure that we prepaid the debt. We paid that down as we, you know, did a China transformation. We took some cash off the balance sheet for that.
Now that we're within that range, and if you look at the guide, if you look at the trailing 12 months, we're at 1.75x. Yeah, I, I do think that as I look into the future, we're gonna continue to grow our earnings. That's gonna convert into free cash flow. With the calls for cash stabilized, right, we've got $535 million left on our repurchase program. It's gonna have an impact on, on the pace.
That said, we always, you know, indicated when we initiated the program, we're gonna take a measured approach, and we're gonna look at both what happens within Adient's four walls in terms of how we're running the business, where we see the business progressing, as well as what's happening from a macro perspective. If you think about the immediate near term, there's a lot of uncertainty now with, you know, production stoppages that could result from UAW strikes, right? We'll take that into consideration, obviously, in the near term, but once we get past that, yeah, I think, you know, with the earnings trajectory that we're on, with the calls for cash stabilized, definitely there's an opportunity to increase the pace.
Maybe just to follow up on one of those comments there about the UAW and, you know, maybe holding back some of the, you know, some dry powder, et cetera. What, what, what are your thoughts headed into the negotiations this year? It does seem like I've seen some headlines the last couple of days, sorta, pretty interesting, the sides seem kinda far apart and, you know, it does seem to suggest maybe a little bit of increased risk for the, the supply sector, or what do you think?
Yeah. Well, it's a bit hard to anticipate, you know, you know, how serious the UAW is with some of the demands that they've initially outlined. It obviously would have a huge impact to the cost structure of our customers, if they were to somehow try to meet those demands. It's not completely clear what the UAW's strategy is. If they pursue a strike, are they going to go and target an OE, which they've traditionally done, or are they going to take the approach of going after component plants that would be more disruptive, and impact all of the customers, at least the UAW-based customers?
I, I, you know, personally don't think a strike is particularly healthy for the economy, so, you know, I think, you know, the Biden administration probably has some interest in making sure it's not too disruptive, and as they intervene in the rail strike and, and, you know, influence the, the UPS, you know, they could involve themselves. They've already appointed a point person on the UAW strike. You know, there's a level of cautious optimism. If there is a strike, it won't be a prolonged strike. You know, for us, personally, it's going to be impactful. We commented what we thought, you know, from a quantitative standpoint, what the impact would look like. We benefit compared to our competitors in that we have a rich business with, you know, not the traditional Detroit Three.
We have strong Toyota business, Honda business, Nissan business. It's, it's less impactful on us, but, you know, certainly not, you know, not good from a macro perspective, so we hope it's relatively short-lived if there is a strike.
To follow up on a comment there about striking a component plant, I mean, historically, my conception of that would be, you know, you strike... I think they struck 1 time, like, GM's Mansfield, Ohio, stamping plant. You know, something that's wholly owned, you know, a transmission plant that's owned by Ford or Stellantis or GM. Could they strike one of your facilities? Is that even an option?
No, I, I, you know, I think it would be a stretch for them to go after one of our facilities because we have separate contracts in our facilities that, you know, they, they would have to really, you know, come up with some sort of, you know, work rules violation. I, I don't really see that as a reasonable outcome, and if they did, you know, it would only target one assembly plant, typically. I'm thinking more it's their component, their engine plants, for example, which, you know, would, to your example, you know, going back in time a bit to the GM strike, you know, that, that cascaded across a broader production platform.
Very helpful. Thank you. Maybe to follow up on some of the, the cash flow comments, too, and Mark had mentioned, you know, CapEx being a focus. You know, say you do get to the 8.5% EBITDA margin, you know, what does cash flow look like in that environment? Jerome's used the words cash flow machine a few times, which certainly perks up investor ears. Can you, can you elaborate on, on that, and, you know, what is, what is the walk between EBITDA and free cash flow look like?
Yeah. Again, if I look at, you know, what the calls for cash are, right? You mentioned CapEx, we've been very transparent, indicating that, you know, we think the current, you know, $300 million-$320 million is, is appropriate for us, right? Especially if we look at where production's heading, the launches, right? If I look at our interest expense, right, the cash piece of that, you know, it's pretty stable right now. If I look at restructuring, we've done a lot of heavy lifting, so, you know, call it $60 million-$75 million in terms of a run rate there going forward. Our cash taxes, the cash teams, tax teams put a lot of work around the plumbing of that.
Even as earnings improve, our cash taxes should stay stable, and I'd call it $95 million-$110 million range. Really then the equation becomes EBITDA, right? As long as EBITDA continues to improve, the pull-through on that should convert into cash, which we can then return to shareholders.
You know, we were chatting before the session about how I'd had a chance to meet with your management team in, in China during the quarter, and, you know, one thing that struck me was just, you know, how levered you still are to China even after the monetization of the JV stakes. In fact, you're the most levered to China, 24% of your combined consolidated, non-consolidated revenue versus all the other suppliers we cover. I, I think the average might be, like, 14% or 15%, so quite a bit. You know, can you speak to the importance of China to Adient? And, you know, what trends are you seeing in the market there currently and, and going forward, and, and how is Adient positioned or, or positioning itself in, in light of those trends?
Maybe, for example, along the lines of the rise of the domestic Chinese manufacturers or e- electrification, et cetera.
Sure. There's, there's a lot to pack into that answer. You know, from our perspective, we think China is still, a, you know, a growth market for us. We think, you know, the Chinese government is committed to automotive production and the development of the automotive industry. Now it's focused on electrification, that provides, you know, at a macro level, a good environment for us to operate. We see the customers that we have in China being very interested in working with us, because, you know, we have probably, you know, the broadest capability in the market from, manufacturing, engineering, development. We provide global technology portfolio for our customers to, think about as they, think about their next generation products.
There's just tremendous, you know, capability that we have, and, and that's why our business has historically performed well in China, continues even in a tough market. When we look out into the future, you know, we see it as a platform that we can align with the way that market's developing, expanding into EV product lines, looking at the domestic Chinese as our major customers. We've done a lot to rebalance our portfolio from a customer standpoint to be focused on them. They're exciting to work with. They are unconventional in the way they do product development. They move very quickly. You know, we've, we've got a dedicated team there that's been adopting or adapting to their style of business. So far, it's been extremely successful for us.
Really, what's happening from a seating technology standpoint, what's being developed in China is really what we see, you know, really reverting back into our traditional markets. Being a leader there is particularly important, not just to grow with the market, but also to be on the forefront of developing that technology that we can back leverage into our traditional markets. You know, certainly, we're always wary of geopolitical influences on the business. We don't really see, you know, being an automotive seating producer as us being a target by governments from any kind of restriction standpoint, as compared to people or perhaps more advanced electronic development. From a risk standpoint, we see risk, but we, we also see it being somewhat moderate. Our business in China is for China.
We're not exporting into other regions, so we don't have that exposure. Even in our supply base, we've done a lot over the last couple of years to decouple and reshore that business into the appropriate markets that are nearer our home base, Mexico, for example, for the U.S. You know, we're not naive. You know, we're, we're cautious, but we're confident in our business in China.
That's helpful. Thanks. I wanted to ask on what the right degree of vertical integration is for Adient. We've seen some competitors make more of a play to get into the seat heating, ventilation, lumbar, massage elements, or even textile or leather operations. I think you've suggested that, you know, maybe you could be every bit as competitive by partnering with others. For example, you mentioned Gentherm, I heard in your opening remarks there. Although, you know, in other areas, you've also spoken about your margin being higher when you're providing more system solutions versus components, and when you have more control over sourcing, et cetera. You do talk about the merits of vertically integrating foam, trim, and metal components. You know, why those parts of the seat and potentially not others?
What's the right way, do you think, for Adient, and for investors in Adient, and other seating suppliers to think about vertical integration?
Sure. You know, I'll start out, and I'm sure Jerome and Mark can add to it. If I just take a step back, and I think about the seating business as it originally involved, it was always a relatively low-margin business, with relatively low capital, relatively low engineering, the ability to control the supply chain, manage working capital, and what resulted was the business generated a lot of cash. That's, again, at a very high level, how we think about how the business should operate. As we've made vertical integration plays in attempt to improve profitability or grab market share, in our particular case, it hasn't really played out that way. Our customers tend to balance markets. We're B2B business. They tend to look for, you know, a wide range of technologies.
You know, there's pitfalls associated being with too vertically integrated. Some of that we've experienced in our Metals & Mechanisms business. We haven't experienced in our trim business, we haven't experienced in our foam business, but those businesses are fundamentally different than our Metals & Mechanisms. They don't require a tremendous amount of engineering. We've got a manufacturing footprint that we can utilize. We don't have to spend a tremendous amount of capital in that business, and we like being positioned there because they remain very profitable, and they kick off a lot of cash. You know, as we look to some of these emerging trends in the seating business, where there's opportunities to vertically integrate, I think our message is, we're going to approach that with a bit more caution, in learning from our past experience.
We may ultimately get there, but we're not going to jump into a strong commitment, because that's counter to how we think about, you know, the points Mark made, how we're managing capital, and how we look really to, you know, first and foremost, generate cash in our business. You know, clearly, margins are important part of that. We have to think, you know, capturing market share as it's been traditionally thought about, enhancing margins, if it comes with a lot of investment, is something that we're not particularly interested in doing right now. Particularly when we have partners that are out there, like Gentherm, like Leggett & Platt, like Autoliv, like Joyson, who are happy to engage with us because the seating business model is a bit unique.
It's a large module with a lot of components that have to be integrated together in an efficient way. We want to be experts at the integration piece. We can pick and choose how we play in that integration and develop that kind of a standalone module that we can de-deliver to our customer. We understand what, what the other folks are doing. You know, we, we think the, the approach we have, the amount of vertical integration that we have, and I would just say, our overall technical competency, we feel pretty good that, we can continue to, to be effective and a leader in this business. That's all.
And maybe-
Yeah, go ahead.
Just, just to add to that a little bit, because you asked the question, you know, trim and foam, and, and why does that work? A lot of it comes down to what I'd call kind of this territory discussion with, with the customer, and where are they willing to really cede territory and sourcing. They're, you know, generally willing to cede territory in, in their sourcing activity, where they're happy to bundle the, the just in time and trim and foam together. You know, they're willing to let those be sourced together. Metals, not so much.
They view metals as a separate sourcing activity, which is, you know, why when we went through kind of our own vertical integration with the acquisition of, you know, Keiper and Hammerstein and CRH and all that, it didn't really play out the way we thought it would. You know, we thought we'd get all these synergies, and it didn't work out that way. It's the same thing with comfort systems. They don't really, you know, source comfort systems together. It's its own separate sourcing activity because they want that flexibility. They want access to the latest technology that's on the market. Whereas trim and foam, you know, they want that to be bundled with the JIT supplier. And we see a lot of benefits with that.
I think that's why trim and foam are, are really different than Metals and Mechanisms, and different than comfort systems.
Yeah, maybe just a little bit of clarification to Jerome's point, which it is, when we talk about that vertical integration, we're primarily talking about trim and foam.
Yeah.
We do have examples where we get that in metals, but with, with those customers, and it's usually to a very specific group of customers that allow that to happen, you know, there's, you know, there's aspects of how they behave that make that an attractive vertical integration. You know, specifically, the Japanese automakers. You know, they'll get life out of a metal and mechanism investment that's 8 to 10 years versus our European customers, who wanna reinvent every four years. Just, you know, the return on capital is a much better scenario for us in, in those situations.
Similarly, we're seeing the same thing with some of the Chinese customers that are allowing us to really scale up and bring our Metals & Mechanisms capability in, and their expectation is that, that foundation stays where they differentiate and refresh products is, you know, what we call the top hat. It's, it's the aesthetic aspect of the vehicle, not necessarily, the mechanical aspect.
That's very helpful. Thank you. You know, as I was flipping through some of your recent slide decks to help myself think of questions to ask, you know, one thing that stood out to me was how often you use the word focus in describing your strategy. You're driving forward with focus, focused on executing your strategy, focused on innovation. You have an extreme focus on containing costs. You're focused on customer profitability, and most of all, you are focused on automotive seating. Maybe talk about. Because you also allude to pursuing a, a back-to-basics approach sometimes, you know. What was Adient maybe more distracted or unfocused by in the past?
Is there maybe, in addition, maybe, an implication, for example, because you're, you're focused on automotive seating, that maybe, competitors, trying to, at the same time, compete with Aptiv and the electrical architecture space, for example, might not be as capable of, of focusing on the, the seating business and their customers as you are with your strategy?
Yeah. Perhaps we need to break out the, the source and be a little bit more diversified. I, you know, Back to basics was something, you know, we instituted 5 years ago, 4 years ago, plus, to really turn the company around. Get us back to the execution side of our business. You know, your examples of where we're focused are really the pillars associated with that. It's, you know, being excellent at product development, managing our supply chain, executing on launches, you know, and nurturing our relationships with our customers. You know, these are just the major pillars.
When we say we're focused there, we've just said, "If we can manage this short list of things and execute, at a very high level, the business will perform." That's really what we were trying to message. They're all interconnected, but we, we could be a bit more creative.
Interesting. Thank you. Let me check to see if there are any questions here in the room. There is one.
As you add more technology in your seats, are there any pricing?
The short answer is yes, we believe so. simply because, i-if we, if we can, you know, if we can master some of that integration, you know, we should be able to price some of that in-into our product. It's not completely-- you know, these are relatively new developments. We're just seeing it unfold in China. We're now in the phase with most of our customers who are now building that into their next generation product. you know, but, but, you know, like, you know, everything that we do, we believe if we execute well, we should be able to enhance the, you know, the margin of our business as a result.
One more question.
Two questions. One is about stabilizing demand or ensuring demand. The other one is, if you wanted to partner with an ADAS provider as well, too. Is there some correlation between the two, or is there some better partnership in the interior of the vehicle that better correlates to seats?
I'm not sure achieving one is at the expense of the other. I, I guess so. If I understood stabilization versus this content opportunity, to me, stabilation- stabilizing the market just gives us the ability to, to run our business on a daily basis more effectively. The technology opportunities and the content we see are just what's emerging, and then how we play into that, is, is what we're really trying to redefine for ourselves right now. You know... maybe I can follow up with you directly, but I don't, I don't see the two being opposed to each other.
Okay. With that, we are out of time, so please join me in thanking Doug and Jerome and Mark for the great insight they shared today.
All right. Thank you.