Their fair share of challenges recently, from rising input costs to production volatility and shifting customer mix dynamics. Among the suppliers that may be best positioned to not only offset these headwinds but emerge stronger is Lear, a global leader in both Seating and electronic systems. Lear has made significant investments in automation and vertical integration, both organically and through acquisitions over the past several years. If they can capitalize on these efforts, management believes it could drive scale and structurally higher profitability across both businesses going forward. To discuss these dynamics and more, I'm very pleased to welcome Lear's President and CEO, Ray Scott, and CFO, Jason Cardew. Thank you both for being with us today.
Yeah, thanks, Emmanuel. It's great to be here.
Maybe to start, can you give us an update on the current state of business? Any update on how things are tracking for the first quarter?
Yeah, so we're two and a half months into the year, and things are tracking really well on the things that we can control. The fact that we put out really an ability to track our performance, I think, was really important, given a number of events that are going on in our industry today. We’ve talked about in a flat to down market, Lear continuing to expand from a net performance perspective and Seating 0.4 basis points and in E-Systems 0.8 basis points. Right now, we seem to be doing a really good job at focusing and executing to our plans, and that is our plan. I mean, we are absolutely focused on execution and the operations, and things are going well. Obviously, a number of things that we'll talk about more, but that are going on in the industry.
From our perspective, on the things that we can control and the things that we can manage, the team's doing an excellent job. I think secondarily to the point of net performance in our operational plans is the general growth, how we're growing in both Seating and E-Systems. Things have started off really well for us. We've talked about the continuation of growing in thermal comfort systems, modular systems. We recently had a great announcement of winning the mid-size trucks for General Motors. I think this only continues to validate this modular solution and the uniqueness of it. Not only helps with comfort features from an efficiency standpoint for the customer, but from a quality perspective and from an overall efficiency. We're really, really proud of the team. We recently just announced that we validated the Ford modular system.
We have a number of other really important awards, but what was really unique about this recent award is that it was in mid-cycle. We'll be launching that later this year. I think that shows the flexibility, the ability to get at and scale those products, to introduce them and not have to wait for a product changeover, but be able to introduce those in mid-cycle. The team did a great job. We're well on our way. I think we're absolutely comfortable and confident in our plan of taking the thermal comfort systems business from what was approximately $630 million last year to our billion-dollar goal. I think that's absolutely on track. In addition to this, we've talked about the backlog. We have about $3 billion of conquest opportunities in Seating that ranges across a number of different key customers.
I think the combination of our efficiencies that we've talked about with manufacturing, really creating a defensible moat around our competitiveness and the modular solutions allows us to quote two different scenarios: one, on adjusting time, but then also supplementing that with a very efficient modular solution across multiple platforms and customers. Really strategically looking at those opportunities in two different, I'll call it, paths for our continued growth. In E-Systems, really confident in the first, like I said, two and a half months of this year. The team's doing a great job operationally. We're seeing some benefits, some tailwinds of the things we put in place last year. I think the simplification of our product portfolio has really aligned and helped with our customers. We actually got some good news just last week.
We won a major battery disconnect unit with a current customer that we had, so it's replacement business, but really shows our design capabilities. It continues to really differentiate us in that area of electrification. Even though the decline of electrification and some of the content within that is changing, we still are well positioned to grow within the EV area. I think that's another area that we've been very excited about. E-Systems is doing a nice job, really focused on, like I said, the operational excellence, but also doing a really nice job of growing. We do have some of the largest growth opportunities in E-Systems in the first half of this year that we're quoting right now. I think the last one that I couldn't, I've talked about this, Emmanuel.
We've been at this for 10 years on the modular components within Seating, but equally as important, the connection of that with the manufacturing opportunities. We've bought several tuck-in acquisitions. We just recently announced another acquisition in manufacturing excellence, operational excellence, and automation. The team's doing a really nice job. We have $75 million targeted this year. It's going extremely well. That will represent about $150 million on an annual basis heading into next year. We introduced the IDEA by Lear last year, but it was a culmination of a lot of different acquisitions we've been doing over seven to eight years in manufacturing excellence. It gives us our own capabilities within capital, our ability to buy our own capital, what we're doing with software with a company like WIP that we just acquired several months ago. Things are going extremely well.
I think that actually in that area, we'll be able to accelerate that much faster. Yeah, it's early in the year, Emmanuel, but things seem to be shaping up nicely for the things that we can control.
Just to add to Ray's comments in terms of the financial outlook for the first quarter, Emmanuel, I'd say that the first quarter is shaping up in line with what we had expected when we established guidance for the full year. Sales and OI both are sort of trending in line with what we expected. If we didn't provide pinpoint estimates for the first quarter on our last earnings call, but if I look at consensus estimates with revenue sort of approaching $5.5 billion and operating margins in the low fours, I think that is in line with what we're seeing. In terms of the production environment, I would say Europe and Asia are a bit stronger. Maybe Europe more than Asia than what we had expected.
North America is slightly weaker, but those are all very minor changes across the three major regions there. We do see a modest benefit from the weaker US dollar impacting revenues as well. With free cash flow, the first quarter is typically a seasonally weak quarter for us, and that'll be the case again this year. Last year, in the first quarter, we used a little less than $150 million of free cash flow. What's a little bit different this year is our quarter ends on March 29. Some of our end-of-March receipts from customers in the U.S. and Europe will fall outside of the quarter. It'll benefit the second quarter, but our use of cash will be greater in the first quarter of this year than it was last year.
Just following up on Ray's comments on net performance, we are seeing positive net performance in both business segments in the first quarter year over year. We are off to a good start. More importantly, we are setting ourselves up for achieving the structural cost benefits that we need to exit the year with 5% or greater operating margins overall. Lastly, from a sheer buyback standpoint, we have continued to buy back stock in the first quarter. As we usually do, we start the year off a little bit slow given the seasonally weak free cash flow in the first quarter, but we have bought back, I think, $17 million through yesterday and are on track to buy back about $25 million in the first quarter.
Great. Thanks so much for the detailed updates. Maybe shifting gears to tariffs, a significant amount of focus on this. Can you please remind us what your exposure to Mexico and Canada is and quantify the potential impact of tariffs if they were to be instated? What would be your strategy to mitigate the risk or the impact?
Yeah, just to reiterate what we said on the fourth quarter earnings call, we had estimated our imports from Mexico into the U.S. were $2.9 billion. Our latest estimates are about $2.8 billion, so pretty darn close to that, less than $100 million from Canada and about $20 million from China. In terms of the, I think, the important delineation between USMCA non-USMCA qualifying material, the vast majority of what we import from Mexico and Canada into the U.S. is USMCA qualifying material. The portion that is not USMCA qualified material, the bulk of that is directed by our customers. We do not see under the current configuration of the tariff rules any significant direct impact at this stage. Obviously, we are concerned if that were to reverse course here after April 2nd and the exposure would be something beyond that and include the USMCA qualified material.
As we sit here today, we do not believe that that is going to be the end result, but that would certainly be a risk. We are working actively with all of our customers on a path to recovery of those costs, any costs that do fall through there. Our view is that, and we have said this previously, that the auto supply space and the margin profile of this business is not such that we can absorb any of the tariff costs as we look at the business going forward.
Yeah, I think it's important, Emmanuel. What we're doing is, one, having a very granular look at everything, every moving part from every different country in and out of Mexico, from the U.S. to Mexico, back and forth, Canada included. I think we've done a really nice job of understanding what the risks are relative to being exposed. We do have optionality within each one of the different areas depending on which scenario is announced on April 2nd. We're within the mindset of looking at each one of those scenarios and how do we offset 100% of those potential tariffs. Some of that is obviously, and the majority of it's going to be passed through to our customers. We've been in constant contact with them. We've explained the issues relative to what those costs look like.
We've explained where those areas are at, making sure if we're qualified with the USMCA components, if we're not quickly getting all of our components qualified. In some cases, we have optional construction where we can source alternative suppliers where it makes sense and continue to work on engineering changes that would allow us the flexibility to make changes. We've continued to mitigate and move in different countries. I think we've done a nice job both in North Africa and then what we're doing in Central America out of Mexico. About 40% of our business in our E-Systems wiring has already been moved. Our target, as we've announced, is 60% of our total business will be moved out of Mexico.
We do have options, but right now our discussions are more on the commercial side on how we're going to handle directed on day one, what those issues mean, how we process the paperwork through the system, and then what alternative options we have longer term. I actually think there's some opportunities. I've mentioned this. With the modular solution we have, Emmanuel, we could move that and scale that in a proper way in the United States. Those types of discussions are being brought up where we can actually do assembly in the US on certain key components. Even the extent of us moving and announcing a move of different component work, I think would be beneficial to our customers and would help our growth strategy.
On that last point, the ability to bring some back to the U.S., does that include also some of the labor-intensive products that you do, such as wiring?
It is more of the assembly of modular components. I think there is some, when you look at wiring, wiring is very labor-intensive. I think that is more of some of the labor arbitrage that we have already been moving to. We would move those a little bit faster, I think, to help mitigate the tariffs. We are in discussions on that tariff. I think customers realize that those types of components, there will have to be a pass-through on the tariffs relative to the cost as we work through this.
Turning to your full year outlook, you expect overall organic revenue to decline by 2% this year, roughly in line with the industry production outlook on a Lear-weighted basis. Can you just remind us what are the drivers of this and how can you go back to outgrowing the market in the future?
Yeah, I think that in 2025, the biggest challenge that we have is really customer mix and program mix. The markets that were largest in the U.S. and Europe are down a little bit. The programs that we're on are experiencing declining volumes. If you kind of rewind the clock going back to COVID, we benefited from the customers' inability to produce all the vehicles in their portfolio, and they focused on their highest margin programs. In seating in particular, we had the right portfolio at the time that benefited from what our customers did in terms of producing and prioritizing certain vehicles over others. In Seating over a four-year period, we had growth over market of about 3.5 percentage points from 2020 through 2024. A portion of that was due to favorable customer mix.
That's the portion that has reversed course a bit here and is a headwind in 2025. I think the other factor is certainly the bulk of our backlog was on new electric vehicle platforms, and those volumes simply haven't materialized as anticipated when those programs were initially sourced. If I look out over the next three, four years, we do see the benefit of the potential conquest awards and Seating that Ray alluded to in his opening remarks of $3 billion of business that we're quoting. We're not going to win all of that business, of course, but we're going to win a significant portion of that. I think if you can sort of look out to 2028 and beyond, where a lot of those programs are going to launch, certainly three to four points of growth over market is a reasonable target for us in Seating.
On the E-Systems side, I think that certainly in addition to lower production volumes in our largest markets that we've experienced towards the end of last year and the first part of this year, in addition to that, we have the products that we have exited or decided to exit starting to roll off this year. Over the next couple of years, there is about $250 million of electronics products like lighting and audio that we're no longer participating in. Those will be a bit of a headwind to growth. Again, with E-Systems, we have significant opportunity for conquest awards on our traditional low-voltage wire business that we're pursuing this year and into early next year that we think we're going to win.
That will allow us to maybe not return to six points of growth over market, but certainly something in the 4-5% range. If electrification positively inflects again later in the decade, that would be an additional tailwind that could push us back to six points of growth over market. Yes, in the near term, 2025 growth over market is weak. 2026 looks a little bit better in both segments. Our backlog that we announced is $1.1 billion next year. We do expect positive growth over market in 2026. Looking out to 2028 and beyond, we see a return to sort of normal growth rates that we have experienced over the last four or five years in the business in both segments.
Yeah, that's very helpful. I want to come back to the backlog just in a minute, but I was going to ask you first on the cost savings side. You're targeting considerable cost savings this year, 40 basis points of Seating margin, 80 basis points in E-Systems, which is even more than what you achieved last year. It seems based on your intro remarks that things are generally on track. Can you just remind us what the drivers are and how much visibility you have into achieving these targets for the full year?
Yeah, and just to sort of level set the conversation here, when we look at our business, the normal business equation entering each year is that we've got to generate efficiencies, commercial benefits, CTO supplier cost reductions that offset our contractual price reductions with our customers and wage inflation. That activity is progressing as it has in the past, sort of at a net zero basis. The 40 and 80 basis points of net performance that we're generating are largely a result of two things. One, our restructuring program and restructuring savings, and then what Ray described earlier and what we're doing with IDEA by Lear and particularly around automation. Those are the key drivers of the net performance improvement that we expect to achieve this year. We have a good line of sight.
As I mentioned early on, the first quarter is off to a great start. A couple of examples on the restructuring side: we're shifting a significant portion of our thermal comfort footprint out of Eastern Europe to Tunisia. That started in the middle of last year, and that's been ramping up and will continue throughout this year. By the end of this year, that will be complete. Also, Ray mentioned this briefly, but we are continuing to shift our footprint from Mexico into Honduras. 40% of our wire footprint headcount today for North America is in Honduras, 60% in Mexico. Over the next two years, that flip-flops and you have 60% in Honduras. Those are the big drivers on the restructuring side. Ray, I don't know if you want to talk about an automation example.
I think what gets us pretty confident in the work that we've been doing, Emmanuel, and like I said, we've been at the modular design for over 10 years. The acquisition of Kongsberg, IGB really helped solidify our position of an integrator in the engineering design. We have a way to differentiate ourselves and continue to expand our margins and Seating on the product side. On the manufacturing side, equally as important, what we discovered in our modular concept was you had to have very unique automation and manufacturing capabilities. I think everyone uses the word operational excellence, and I think it's an overused word in some cases without a clear definition of what it means. What it means for Lear is what we really established last year.
It really gave us a North Star on what we're doing with IDEA by Lear, IDEA being innovation, digitalization on the plant floor, engineering, which is really how you engineer a modular component that's designed for the last letter automation. There are a lot of components within the manufacturing world that are commodities where you can buy cameras, you can buy cobots, you can buy all these things that are very, very cost-effective. The integration of those things on the plant floor is what really is unique. The acquisitions and even the most recent acquisition of StoneShield just shows how we're focused on manufacturing. Let me give you an example. We have a project called Thin the Lights of the End of Line in Just- in- Time.
It really takes in everything that I described with smart ovens with automation and detective detection systems with cobots and vision systems. The software that we're embedding in our control panels on the plant floor are only designed for Lear Corporation. These companies we've acquired, we immediately cut the contracts. We've embedded that human capital and really that innovation for our own personal needs. We introduced a way to connect the dots last year, but what we're doing with automation in our manufacturing plants, we're doing it while production's running. I think the complexity that when you think about, boy, we're getting at $75 million that competitors can't get at, that is something that's durable, that's long-lasting, that differentiates our model and how we believe we can expand margins in a flat-to-down market. Now I'm confident in our team.
I know we've put targets out there. I know and believe the team will beat those targets because I think we're somewhat cautious in how we look at the numbers. I think there's just launch costs and things that we look at that I think we'll exceed and beat and how fast we get at that. The first half is very important. How we accelerate that in the second half, that really sets up what we talk about with exiting at our target margins of a company at 5% really starts to put motion in place for next year. That is something that's different than any other company that I look at and then listen to. We have the typical, the restructuring, the downsizing, those types of things. I think we've done a great job.
If you look at what we've done with headcount reductions, we have the same type of goal that we expect this year, and we're on track. The combination of all those things, I think absolutely is the way we're going to differentiate ourselves and expand margins in a flat-to-down market. We're focused on it. That's exactly what we're doing. I feel good so far this year, but we're investing in areas where we can get a really good return.
Yeah, I appreciate the caller. On the Seating side, help me understand the backlog dynamic. This year you have virtually no Seating backlog rolling on, but next year you expect a significant $900 million or so. You have not disclosed a backlog number for 2027. Can you help us understand the current OEM sourcing dynamics?
Yeah, do you want to start on the sourcing dynamics?
Yeah, I think, Emmanuel, what we're seeing, and again, I think the industry's seeing this is one, a number of customers somewhat paused and pivoted around EVs and how they're looking at propulsion systems, what demand really looked like. There's a number of quoting activities that were in process that were delayed. A lot of them were pushed from last year into this year, and they were pushed from, and there's been a lot of recent announcements about programs being pushed out from 2027 to 2028 or even 2029. I think the whole propulsion system and our traditional OEs really looking at what real demand looked like really created this push into 2028 and 2029 with some of the quotes that we were actually quoting on.
I think the second point is, in addition to that, there was different technology, software development programs with the architecture that I think our customers took a pause on those types of implementations and how and when they're going to implement those things as far as software, architectural designs, those types of things. We saw quotes getting pushed into 2028. A lot of the quoting process, I think, has really been an element of how our customers are looking at their position in the marketplace. I think that's synonymous across every customer. I wouldn't point out one customer over another. I think we've all read about programs being delayed from 2027 into 2028. There have been several announcements recently.
I think in addition to that, what we're hearing is a lot of this implementation around the most cost-competitive system, if it's the battery or the harnesses or what they're doing as far as the interiors, really getting aligned with their cost, being the most efficient, the technology implementation, and the real demand around propulsion systems, around hybrids, ICE vehicles, and EVs. The industry, I think, as a whole is seeing somewhat of a stagnant 2027 and a push into new program launches in 2028 and 2029. That's my explanation. I'll let Jason kind of go through the explanation of the numbers.
Yeah, just real quick. What gives us a lot of confidence in the Seating backlog for 2026 is the fact that now two-thirds of that is on ICE powertrain vehicles and high-quality vehicles, the largest of which is the Audi Q7, an important Conquest Award that we took from a competitor that launches towards the end of this year into next year. Just real quick on our decision not to provide a backlog for 2027, we just did not have the confidence in the volume outlooks for that time period, given all the uncertainty around ICE versus EV and whether new electric vehicles were going to gain traction in the marketplace. We just thought it was prudent to focus on what we did have confidence in, which was the 2025 and 2026 backlog. I will also just quickly highlight our 2026 non-consolidated backlog in Seating is significant.
70% of that is with the Chinese domestic OEMs and half of the non-consolidated backlog is with BYD. We have a high degree of confidence in both the consolidated and the non-consolidated backlog in that time period.
Great. Yeah, thanks for the caller. I had some questions around more questions around Seating and BYD, but just in the interest of time, I'll probably switch to E-Systems and also want to leave some time for questions around the strategic alternatives. On E-Systems, is generating margins around 5%? Obviously, it used to be considerably more. What are the drivers to continue to improve the margin towards your midterm targets? Particularly with the slower acceleration of EV, is there room in general to essentially invest maybe less in EVs based on the new trajectory for this powertrain? Would that help accelerate that trajectory towards the midterm margin targets?
Yeah, certainly the level of investment required for electric vehicles in the near to medium term is lower than what we were investing in if you go back four or five years. Part of that is because we've exited products like onboard chargers. Part of it is that initial R&D investment can be used and applied to new programs that we're pursuing as we move forward. Moving back to the first part of your question, Emmanuel, we believe we can expand margins in these systems even in a flat production volume environment. That is really what we're focused on now. These efforts around net performance are geared towards generating margin expansion in a flat volume environment. We have 80 basis points of net performance this year. There are three drivers of that.
We talked about restructuring savings and automation already, but the other is what we're doing around efficiencies in our North America operations. We struggled in the first part of last year with launches of a new facility and some new programs there. We saw a gradual improvement in the second half of last year. That has accelerated here into the first quarter, off to a very good start. There is a meaningful benefit to the net performance number in E-Systems and operating margins generally through these efficiency gains that we're experiencing in North America. Looking out to 2026 and 2027, the biggest driver is going to be, again, continuation of this restructuring, shifting the footprint to Honduras from Mexico, to North Africa from Eastern Europe, and automation. We are in the first or second inning of the real automation benefits in E-Systems.
We see that accelerating towards the end of this year, into next year, and then even more so into 2027. I think you get out to 2027 and 2028, and we would expect automation to exceed the benefits that we're achieving through restructuring savings. We think we can generate positive net performance sort of in the 150 basis point range over that 2026 and 2027 timeframe. Even without any backlog or volume, we would see margins in the mid-sixes. I think at that point, we would expect to see some industry volume recovery and some benefit from our backlog, which would be additive to those targets.
I guess as a follow-up, just my bigger question would be, is there any appetite or would it make sense at all to reduce the scope of powertrains you support? Or is sort of like the investment in EVs generally needed just because you're a global player and this is where essentially the industry is going on a global basis?
We have narrowed the focus from an engineering standpoint to battery disconnect units and the intercell connect board. That is really the extent of our investment in the electrification space that is not applicable to ICE vehicles. The rest of the electronics portfolio, the rest of the wire portfolio benefits equally from any powertrain, whether it is ICE or EVs.
Yeah, I think several years ago, we simplified the product portfolio, and it really is. Obviously, we do a nice job in wiring. Everything we're quoting, Emmanuel, is above our cost of capital. Now some of that has been negative because of volumes, but we're in negotiations with our customers to get, again, the margin above our cost of capital. That's what we're focused on. I think simplifying the product portfolio has really helped us. Like Jason said, the battery disconnect and intercell connect boards, we do a very good job. The most recent award, which was a replacement for the next generation, was really won because of our design capabilities. We're doing that, again, at a pricing level that we generate margin above our cost of capital. We're focused, really focused on where we believe we can continue to create value.
The execution of our plan that Jason went through is the focus. If we do not need to spend capital, we are not going to spend capital. No question about that. Where we can grow and grow our margin, expand our margin is what we are focused on. There are limitations like we have rolled off the lighting and audio, those types of things where we just could not compete long term. Other areas we have continued to just continue to divest or even roll off and focus in where we can quote even strategically with customers where we think we absolutely can get a fair return on our investment. We position ourselves well. I think we have a good book of business between our engineered components that does a nice job of returns, wiring, and then the smaller portion, which is electronics.
Great. Here is really the biggest question I have for you. Having dealt with challenges over the past several years, many suppliers are evaluating strategic alternatives to unlock shareholder value. Things that are way, way above business as usual. How does Lear think about this? When we think about it from the outside, it feels like there are so many different layers of optionality. We are curious whether Seating and E-Systems still belong together, whether if some Seating assets were to come to the market from weaker players, would that be of interest? If E-Systems assets are coming to the market, would that be of interest? Would you be a consolidator? Does the current structure make sense? It is a very broad question, but how are you thinking about strategic alternatives in the current environment?
I think to just state that my number one objective period is to improve shareholder value. That is what I focus on. The combinations of different solutions that you just mentioned are something that is under consideration every single day as we work on different scenario planning and different options. I do, and I actually believe that there will be consolidation. We have seen it. We have seen Aptiv with their announcement of New Co and spinning off wiring. We have seen American Axle. We have seen others. Probably there will be other announcements over the next several months to a year. My primary focus right now, and I believe we can create great shareholder value and improve the stock, we could not be more disappointed. We have to improve the stock price, no question about it. That is to execute the plan that we just mentioned, Emmanuel.
We continue to expand margins in a flat to down market, and that's the primary focus. In either scenario, Emmanuel, improving our business helps us. We have a great product portfolio, and what I mean by that, we have a lot of optionality. We have electronic components that I think could work in a different scenario potentially. We have engineered components in E-Systems that give us a great return, and we have wiring. We can participate when there's an opportunity to create value for our shareholders. I think there's some valuation issues right now with some of these options that are available at this time. I think that there's more reality that needs to come into those valuations.
I think that when we look at our discount or free cash flow on the options we have in front of us as we execute our plan versus other options, we're going to consider those. Nothing's off the table. I also think Lear is well positioned to execute our plan, drive shareholder value by executing. We don't need to leverage up. We don't need to spend a ton of money, put a burden of balance sheet with these types of scenarios that are in front of us. In the future, if there's something that we can generate better shareholder value, absolutely, we're going to look at it. I think patience is something that is important right now. I think there's going to be more opportunities in the future, both in, I think, Seating and E-Systems.
In the current environment, what are your, just remind us, what are your capital allocation priorities then?
Yeah, priorities remain unchanged. We're going to continue investing in the business organically. We're looking at tuck-in acquisitions on the manufacturing automation and integration side like we've done over the last five years. We're going to buy back stock. We started that here in the first quarter. We expect to buy back no less than $250 million this year based on sort of the low end of our free cash flow guidance. As we work our way to the midpoint or high end of that range, we'll look to increase that appropriately. That is our focus in the near term, Emmanuel.
Maybe just going back to the BYD question since I think we have another minute or two. You've disclosed you've won 30% of BYD Seating business for 2026. How does doing business with Chinese customers, how is that different from traditional OEMs? Are they more receptive to some of your vertical integration technologies? And what's usually the margin profile on some of these wins?
Yeah, Emmanuel, one, it's exciting. I was recently over in China and meeting with the CEO of BYD, and it's about innovation. We're competing against the domestic Chinese today, and we're doing a really nice job of winning business with BYD. We talked about having 30% of their portfolio in Seating. The way we're positioned with innovation, and I'm not just talking product, I'm talking manufacturing, how quick they want to go to production with new vehicle launches fits perfectly with us because we talked about the ability to own your own capital, design your own capital. That also helps out with timing, time of capital. It's not only more efficient from a cost standpoint, but we can move much faster. The innovation, it's all about innovation.
I mean, that's all we talked about was the modular design, what we can do, what we can do not just in China, but what we can do outside of China. They are very excited about the innovation that we bring because there isn't a competitor that we have right now that has that type of capability on the manufacturing and the product side of Seating. I feel very confident. There was a very constructive, positive meeting. They gave us insight that they want to continue to grow us. We are going to continue to push innovation. I think that goes for a number of domestic Chinese. I'll be back in April sitting down with a couple of key partners of ours. There are going to be continued opportunities, not just with BYD, but Changan, Xiaomi, Xpeng.
There's a lot of different really good customers that we're doing a great job of growing our business from a margin perspective.
Yeah, the margin profile of business with the Chinese domestic OEMs and Seating is similar to the rest of our portfolio. The biggest factor that determines sort of where it fits on the range from, say, 5-10% is the level of vertical integration. If it's just-in-time Seating without any components, it's going to be on the lower end. If it's a fully vertically integrated program with seat covers and structures and foam, then it's going to be on the higher end. That's what we're experiencing so far on the Chinese domestics from a profitability standpoint.
Great. I think that's an exciting place to conclude. Ray and Jason, thank you so much for your time and insights today. Very much appreciated.
Yeah, thanks, Emmanuel.
Thank you.
Good seeing you.
Thanks, everyone, for joining.