All right, we're gonna get going with our, our next presentation now. Once again, I'm Ryan Brinkman, the U.S. autos analyst. Very happy to have Jim Zizelman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Stoneridge, and Matthew Horvath, Chief Financial Officer. They've got some opening remarks, then we'll engage them in some Q&A. Jim, I turn it over to you. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much. Appreciate it, and thanks for affording Stoneridge some time here today to talk a little bit about our company, and then we'd be very happy, of course, to engage deeply on the questions as they, as they come. Maybe moving on here to page, page four, I guess.
Here we go.
Oh, I guess I get to click this. All right, good. Just getting into a company overview. You know, some of you may know Stoneridge. I think probably many of you don't know much about Stoneridge, so I thought I'd take a little bit of time to provide some background on the company itself. It's a, it's a fairly well-established company. It's very well diversified by, by customer, by end market, by geography, and by segment within the company as well. The product portfolio inside of Control Devices and electronics, as well as our Brazil segment, it's all been transforming fairly significantly over the last few years as the industry megatrends have changed pretty dramatically.
You know, one of the, you know, key megatrends that is of critical nature, I think, to most folks in the auto industry, is the movement toward electrification, whether that be pure electrics or hybridized vehicles. You know, we had to make sure that, you know, as we, you know, navigated the waters here, that we're doing the right thing with regard to that particular megatrend. You know, one of the approaches we take is, is, I think, very specific, and that is this idea of, of being driveline agnostic. What that means is, you wouldn't design a product specifically for electric or specifically for internal combustion engines.
You'd design, at least at the technology level, the product such that it could be applied at the product level to either of, either of those two, very different, drivelines. That's really the approach that we've been taking inside of Stoneridge. You know, as we move forward here, we expect that more than 90% of our sales by 2027, will be products that are, in fact, driveline agnostic. It's important because, you know, the movement, the adoption of electrified powertrains, it's quite different from region to region, and as we've seen in the last couple of years, maybe is a bit variable, even within a region, based on what the prior expectations were.
Having that agnostic nature gives you that flexibility to really address the market with product in whatever way it happens to roll out. As you can see here on the slide as well, you know, we have a very healthy, five-year backlog of $3.6 billion, and this, this is very supportive of a, of a nearly 10%, you know, five-year revenue CAGR. Right? It's very healthy in this industry and certainly at a pace that is far out- or outpacing our end markets. Maybe with that, with that, quick introduction, I'll move on here to the next slide and talk a little bit about the diversified products that we have in our, in our portfolio, and I'll talk about it also by segment.
You know, again, we, we are very cognizant of the industry megatrends. I mentioned electrification already, but that also includes things like safety and security, intelligence, and we're now combining efficiency and emissions, sort of into, into one megatrend. You know, all of, all of the work we do, of course, we wanna make sure that we have great return on investment, but we also wanna make sure that it's, it's clearly focused, you know, on these, on these megatrends. The Control Devices segment is there shown up on the left, and, you know, that comprises about 41% of our, of our adjusted sales.
Again, in this particular segment, we've made a significant transformation, as that's the segment that was much more conventional in nature, historically. You know, we've been working in all of those product line areas to make sure that we are able to serve, again, both the conventional market as well as the electrified market. You know, again, the product lines that you see up there, you know, first one you see is actuation. You know, this is an important product line for us. In fact, it makes up now more than half of our business in Control Devices. The actuation technologies themselves are focused very much so on axle disconnect type applications, electronic transmission shift applications.
Basically, control elements that can be applied again, independent of the type of driveline you have. A couple of good examples of product in that space that we've recently talked about. You know, last quarter, we announced our product called the Driveline Disconnect Actuator for the Corvette E-Ray. This product actually is on that particular vehicle, which is a hybrid electric vehicle for GM on the Corvette for the first time. It's an actuator that allows you to connect or disconnect the electric motor, which powers the front axle in that application.
Also, you know, we announced in this past quarter, in the earnings, in the earnings call last week, we talked about a new product that we are winning some new business on, an extension to current business, but also the new and next-generation products as well, in a conventional four-wheel drive space. It's also an actuator that connects or disconnects an axle, but allows you for that transition between four-wheel drive and two-wheel drive. The interesting thing about those two technologies, and the reason I bring them up, is that at the fundamental level, at the base technology level, they use the same technology. They use the same technology, but one's purely in the electric space, the other one is purely in the internal combustion engine space.
Again, that strategy that we talk about, being agnostic to driveline type, is really put into action here pretty, pretty heavily. Also, you see valving technologies, you know, well placed in thermal management systems for electric vehicles and sensing technologies, too, which have historically been in the temperature space for us and historically been placed on conventional internal combustion engines. Now, as we move toward battery-powered vehicles, the thermal management necessary to control temperatures on batteries, on power electronics, on electric motors, those sensors are providing that feedback to the control system. In fact, a good portion of our business today in low temp sensing is, in fact, in the electric vehicle space.
On the, on the electronic side, it's about 53% of adjusted sales, and this business here is focused almost entirely in the commercial vehicle space. You know, in this particular segment, over the last years, we've ramped up a lot of new products, especially in the driver information systems space, so electronic instrumentation and engagement, you know, the human interface engagement inside the cabin of a commercial vehicle. We've had extremely strong and positive reaction to those technologies in vehicles like that and continue to book new and, and interesting business in that space. Connectivity is also a key space for us. We're launching our Smart 2 tachograph in Europe during the summer, this summer.
You know, that product, again, is a key, key, follow-on product from our existing, connectivity, product in that space as well. Interesting thing about that product is it's applicable both to OE business as well as aftermarket business. Then on the safety and security side, we have a product called MirrorEye, and this is a basically, a camera mirror system that replaces the large rearview mirrors on today's commercial vehicles. I'm gonna talk a lot more about that going forward, but it's a, it's a critical product for us.
A lot of additional content per vehicle with that product, and a lot of opportunity to get into, I'll say, product adjacencies, where you would build off the foundation of that MirrorEye product. Again, we'll talk a lot more about that here by the end of the, end of the discussion. Then on the Stoneridge Brazil side, I know historically, this has been an aftermarket business for us, and, you know, we've been, you know, essentially over the last few years, transforming that business to be more OE focused, and, and more of an increase in terms of OE focus on the local Brazilian commercial vehicles.
They've also served for us to be a good technology partner, a good place to do strong electronics engineering, serving the entirety of Stoneridge as well. So that, that essentially covers, you know, the product portfolio and the diversification in that portfolio. Let me move on now onto some discussion around MirrorEye itself. Again, this is as I said, a camera mirror system, you know, it's a replacement technology for the for those large side view mirrors, as I had mentioned. You know, what do you get from such a technology? First off, you know, the field of view from a camera mirror system is far superior to what you have in today's, you know, conventional mirror systems. You have typical side view mirrors.
You'll have a mirror in the front that looks down the front along the grill, and yet another mirror on the side, on the passenger side, that looks, you know, directly down along the passenger side. This camera mirror system allows you for coverage of all of that in a digital fashion. Again, so the field of view is significantly improved. Driver safety is, you know, far, far improved. Cameras are high definition, they're color, there are night vision capabilities with these cameras, also in color, so the, the visibility you get across all operating environments is extremely strong. It's also hydrophobic, all right? So in inclement weather, now, water droplets do not stick to the camera lens itself, unlike the, the conventional mirrors.
Again, another real opportunity for clarity in, in, in the vision of the system or the vision of what's around the truck. Then lastly, by the nature of the product itself, and you, you can't really see it well in the, in the picture, but the... With the removal of side view mirrors and the application of a very, very aerodynamic wing or housing for these cameras, there's a substantial improvement in fuel economy, too. As you might guess, in the fleet business, that's extremely important. You know, customers are reporting back, 1.5% or 2% improvement in fuel economy. As some of us know in the room, that's a very big deal. You know, how are we going to market with this product?
You know, there are really three different ways that we go to market. You know, first way is through retrofit. You know, early on, when we wanted to really excite the market with this technology and really enthuse OEs to listen and engage us, we started working with several different North American fleets. You know, these names are known in the, in the fleet area, the names like Schneider and Nussbaum and KLLM or Frozen Food Express. You know, these are well-known fleets, and they have been utilizing this technology sold directly to them from us, you know, retrofitted by us, so that they could, you know, really see the benefits from this.
Some of the numbers I'm reporting in terms of benefit, those numbers come from those fleets because they have large numbers of vehicles that are utilizing the technology, and they can, they can be statistical about what, what they're seeing. That, that's one way, a direct retrofit. We also have a second way where we pre-wire vehicles. You know, we announced a while ago that we were working with Daimler Truck North America to retro, not to retrofit, but to have them pre-wire vehicles so that their vehicles are ready for retrofit. It makes the transition to a retrofit MirrorEye much easier. There's a greater degree of reliability associated with having a factory wiring harness instead of someone trying to do that after the fact.
That's been, it's been quite important for us in terms of the retrofit then, of those Daimler Truck North America vehicles. Lastly, and, and certainly most importantly, and, you know, most sustainably, is the OEM programs. You know, we have four awarded programs. You can see those on the, on the chart on the right. We, we have significant market share in the space, and, and we're focused, you know, very much so, both in North America and in Europe with this product at the moment.
When we were booking this business, you know, the original expected take rate or the rate at which, you know, dealers would be optioning their trucks to have this type of technology, we were told and we were advised that 15% was the right number, and, you know, a lot of our calculations are based on that. We're finding that the take rates are, you know, once the customer gets the product available, the take rates are much higher, and we'll talk about some numbers here in a moment. We launched our first program, which says Program Number One up there in Europe, in late 2021, and that take rate at the moment is about 40%, so more than double what was initially anticipated.
Our second program, we announced this again just last week. You know, it's a, it's a program with PACCAR, and the PACCAR North American brands are Kenworth and Peterbilt. PACCAR has launched already on the, on the, on the Kenworth truck, and they're anticipating a launch very soon on their Peterbilt model of truck as well. Thirdly, the third program there, it's a European OE, and, you know, this particular OE is expected to launch in the first half of 2024. We are really, you know, chipping away, you know, at this business and really booking, you know, every opportunity we get, relative to a camera mirror system, you know, we've, we've booked.
You know, in the end, you know, we're quite optimistic about the opportunity here. Clearly, the take rates are, you know, well, enhanced relative to what was expected, and it has, you know, great potential to drive increased revenue for the company going forward. Again, there's a lot of adjacent products that can come along with the MirrorEye system over time that will eventually help in terms of the revenue in the company. With that, let me pass the microphone over to Matt Horvath, our CFO, and he's going to talk a little bit about our long-term targets. Matt?
Great. Thanks, Jim. As you can imagine, with the product portfolio that Jim just outlined, we have a significant amount of market outgrowth that we expect over the next several years. We put out long-term targets, on the top line that represent about a 10% revenue CAGR over the next five years, between $1.3 billion-$1.5 billion. You know, like Jim mentioned, we have a very strong backlog of awarded business. The MirrorEye programs that are launching are launching at take rates that are higher than what was originally quoted. That has an opportunity to even outperform that, that growth rate that we've outlined. Really strong performance on the top line that we expect going forward.
You know, when you look at that, that represents about 2.5x or 3x market outgrowth over that same period of time. A tremendous amount of content growth, a tremendous amount of new program launches that really facilitates a lot of top-line growth for the company. When you look at our margin profile and the way that we contribute, we contribute about 25%-30% contribution margin on incremental revenue. When you're talking about a 10% CAGR over the next five years, we expect really strong EBITDA performance. Coming this year from about a 5.5% EBITDA guidance, we expect to be between 11.5% and 13.5% EBITDA margin over the next five years.
Again, that's based basically on contribution margin on incremental revenue and that strong backlog that supports that top-line growth. Really, a tremendous amount of opportunity for the company going forward. You know, you look at that in pure dollars perspective, that's coming something from a you know, mid-50s to $60 million of EBITDA this year to, you know, about $150 million + of EBITDA over a five-year period. Really tremendous opportunity to create value on top-line growth that is more or less booked in the backlog, maybe even some opportunity to outperform based on the take rates, conversation that Jim just mentioned. We're really excited about about the next five years for the company.
We've got a product portfolio that obviously supports a significant amount of growth, and really an overall strategy, like Jim mentioned, drivetrain agnostic, following industry mega trends, tremendous opportunity for financial performance, and really some key areas of focus. You know, Jim mentioned the fact that MirrorEye, as that platform continues to grow, there's opportunities to even grow product around that existing capability. Today, it is a really good mirror replacement product, but we've talked recently about the fact that we've expanded that to trailer activity, for example.
Taking, taking the MirrorEye system and now incorporating that into a smart trailer, where you've got vision and safety capabilities around the trailer, piped into the tractor, where you've already got displays and can see what's going on in and around the truck, is a great opportunity for us forward. We're really excited about our product portfolio. We think it turns into really strong financial performance for the company going forward, and we feel really comfortably aligned with the industry mega trends that will drive that growth. With that, I think we'll take some questions.
Yeah, great. Thanks so much for the overview. First question is, if you could comment on the state of demand in your major end markets.
Yeah, the demand. Let's split them into the two end markets then, primarily. In the commercial vehicle side, the demand, I'll say locally from our customers at the moment, is extremely strong, and they expect to maintain that strength, you know, throughout the course of this year. They're making up a lot of sales, if you will, from trucks that were not ordered during time periods when there were component shortages, and they really couldn't get out as many vehicles as they wanted. That, from our perspective, that market looks strong.
Yeah, there's some, when you look at some of the, the prognostic, kind of, predictors, for that market going forward, for next year, for example, there's, you know, some indication that that will come down a little. It's not something we have a, you know, significant concern about because there's so much self-help, there's so much added content per vehicle that we're bringing with things like driver information systems, you know, the MirrorEye system, for example, you know, we think that that will really not, not be, you know, problematic for us. We're, again, so we're quite bullish that, you know, from a demand perspective for the Stoneridge product, we're gonna be in quite good shape. On the light-duty vehicle side and more on the Control Devices side, again, that, that market is fairly stable.
I think that surprised some people-
Sure.
how, how strongly it, it held in there, throughout the course of 2023. We're seeing that be maintained. Again, by the nature of our transformation in the product line, you know, we are now resident on a lot of the high-demand electric vehicles or the high-demand sport utility vehicles or light trucks, where there's just a lot of market share. Again, by the nature of our agnostic approach and, and the vehicles on which we are placed, we think we're, we're in pretty good shape there as well. Now, you know, on everyone's mind who follows automotive, of course, is the pending negotiations between the UAW and the Big Three, whoever they choose to target, maybe they'll target a supplier, who really knows at this point? That certainly is, you know, on the forefront of our thoughts, right?
We're being very careful about, you know, keeping up to date with the, the latest there and engaging our customers very specifically, so that if there is something that comes to be a problem in that space, that we're prepared to deal with that as well. That, that certainly could be a disruptor here for 2023.
Great. Thank you. And what about, what you're seeing on the supply chain side in terms of its impact on your customers' production and sort of the steadiness of that production as impacts, your costs?
Yeah. First things first, you know, we, we all sort of, you know, wiped our brow a bit here as we got into the second half of 2023. We've, we've, we've seen a significant improvement, in, in the supply of our, of our componentry. You know, we had supply chain issues, not just on electronics, we had it everywhere, whether it be metals or plastics, resin, you name it. There were people in trouble, and you know, we are well beyond that. We really don't have a lot of issue at the moment with regard to supply chain shortages. Now, that's not to say there isn't any. There still is, you know, an issue here or there, but usually much more addressable, much more quickly, at far less cost than what we had seen in the past.
You know, that, that's maybe one, one element of that. You know, there still are some chips in some areas, especially the older chips, where there can be some stress, but again, we're able to work around that fairly effectively. Also, from a cost perspective, you had mentioned cost. We've seen, you know, the material costs, although not declining, right? We've seen it stabilizing, right? We're not continuously being hit by increased costs that somehow we have to address, whether it be in pricing to our customers or, you know, cost reduction inside the house. I, I think overall, you know, we feel much, much better about the supply at this moment. By the way, our customers also are not, you know, suddenly taking orders out because they can't get supply from someone else.
I think what Stoneridge is experiencing is being experienced by most of the other Tier one and Tier two suppliers out there.
I think in the commercial truck industry, a lot of how the vehicle is configured is, you know, they're ordered by the fleets from the manufacturers, right?
Mm-hmm.
We want, we want this equipment on it.
Yeah.
As opposed to the manufacturers, you know, they give them options, as opposed to.
Yeah. Yeah.
Just curious, you know, if you're engaging more with the fleets or, or with the OEMs, and, I mean, to me, it sounds like, and, but it's sounded for years, like this product MirrorEye ought to sell itself.
Yeah.
You know, obviously, it's got, you know, societal benefits with safety and everything, but what about just the return on investment if, from a hard-nosed fleet operator in terms of, you know, what they pay you relative to what their fuel savings can be over time, and then maybe, like, what their liability savings and insurance savings can be, et cetera?
Yeah. You know, let me, let me just say it this way: The fleets see an extremely strong value proposition here, very strong. All the elements you talked about, you know, fuel economy, for sure, right? They see the fuel economy, they talk about it all day long. You can go out on social media, and you can see truckers actually talking about it, right?
Mm.
They feel so strongly about it, they're actually out there talking about it. From the standpoint of driver fatigue, right? you know, some of our fleet customers are telling us that they like this technology because it creates less stress to drive the truck when you have all of this information available to you in a clear and a continuous fashion, and you're not searching for it or trying to look through something that isn't totally clear. They feel from a driver fatigue perspective, there's an improvement.
I can't be quantitative on the safety side, but we have also had, you know, some commentary from fleet customers that they feel that there is also an improvement in terms of just general safe operation of the truck and an improvement, perhaps in liability, you know, from their perspective as well. I think that's, you know, yet to be seen exactly how that plays out as you get more and more of these on the road today. One thing for sure, if you ever had an, you know, a chance to have a mishap with an over-the-road truck, almost always the truck gets blamed, right? The, the, the trucker is-
He's got to be able to record it.
Yeah. Now, yes, with the MirrorEye, there's an opportunity-
Yes
to actually save some of these images, so there can be some proof what exactly happened during an incident with the vehicle. We also feel that that is going to serve both the fleets and the OEs quite well. Now, in terms of who we're working with, as I mentioned, certainly in the initial part of this business, it was fleets. You know, part of that was because, you know, what you said was right, at least in North America, that the fleets drive the OEs a little bit in terms of what they want. They have been very vocal to the OEs, and the OEs have responded in kind, and that's why we have, you know, you know, succeeded so well in terms of booking the business with the, with the, with the OEs here in North America.
Bottom line is we are working with both. Certainly, it was more fleets at the beginning, but as we go forward in the longer term, right, this really is a big OE play.
Can you talk about the-
Yeah.
Yeah, the sequential uptick in your margin from 1Q to Q2?
Yeah.
Like, how much of that was driven by, you know, industry factors or macro factors versus, company-specific execution, et cetera?
Yeah. Obviously, we had a significant increase in gross margin from Q1 to Q2. You know, we talked at the beginning of the year about some of the input costs rising, not just material-related costs, but also labor, energy, particularly even some FX-related costs, as we look at where we manufacture product. We went back with all of our customers and had negotiations around price. What does that mean for price? You know, when you've got technology that's launching like we do, it's a little easier to have those conversations because the demand is, is pretty strong on the customer side, but we were very successful in getting those price increases, negotiating and completed in the second quarter.
we right-sized our run, our run rate from a margin perspective, and also got a little bit of the retroactive benefit of some of those negotiations. For example, things that were concluded in the second quarter, we got retroactive price, maybe for the beginning- to the beginning of the year, that improved gross margin in the second quarter. The gross margin improvement in the second quarter was a little bit offset by incremental D&D in the second quarter. Jim mentioned, for example, the launch of our Smart 2 tachograph program this year in Europe. There's some incremental design and development costs related to launching that program and, and getting across the finish line, which we don't expect will, will recur going forward.
We think we've got the gross margin profile right-sized and kind of at an inflection point now with the price increases completed. We've got a little bit of short-term uptick in engineering costs that, once right-sized, will really provide a meaningful tailwind to earnings forward. When you go from Q2 to Q3, and you see the progression in our guidance at the end of the year, not only do we get good contribution margin on revenue in the fourth quarter, we get strong gross margin on the price increases that we've now got finalized and some tailwind back on some of the reduction of those D&D costs as we launch some of the products.
We thought the second quarter was kind of an inflection point for our margin profile forward, and we feel really comfortable now that going forward and in 2024, that will provide a nice tailwind for us.
Could you elaborate what you mean, when you say that MirrorEye could be used, as, sort of a platform for-
Yeah.
-a long-term opportunity, a platform for, adjacencies, et cetera?
Sure. Again, MirrorEye is a, is a camera mirror system. Right now, it's focused, you know, essentially on rear view, you know, side view and front view, right? Think about your own passenger car today. You probably have a car today that has a 360 view, right? A bird's-eye view. We've been. We announced this in one of our recent earnings calls. We've been working with certain companies, in fact, there's a trailer company we're working with called Roadie, to equip the Class 8 trailers with cameras as well, with a very highly engineered, very innovative technology to deliver the signal from those cameras back into the cab without changing any of the wiring on the vehicle. Right?
For example, you know, that's a great adjacency because the platform for managing those signals and putting them onto the, onto the various monitors inside the vehicle, it, it's already there in MirrorEye. Now we have an innovation that allows you to connect to that easily and quickly, even retrofit trailers that are out there today, plug in with a standard connector. You know, these kinds of things are, are, you know, critical adjacencies that, that will, you know, allow us really, in the short term, to even up the revenue beyond what we're talking about. You know, secondly, you think about, again, in automotive, the idea of the advanced driver assistance systems, the ADAS systems, and, you know, the, the object detection, right?
You know, input to systems on the vehicle that allow for there to be a degree of automation in terms of control on the vehicle. The types of signals we're talking about through digital cameras, can be a part of those systems as well. We're, we're going down that path as the next step in terms of the next generation of products that would be in and around the MirrorEye platform.
Interesting. I, I heard you say that the large majority of your, your, your business is essentially like powertrain or drivetrain, agnostic.
Yeah.
What, what is the impact, would you say, at the end of the day, in the transition toward electric vehicles in your business?
Well, I, I would say we have a greater opportunity.
Mm-hmm.
By the nature of what happens in commercial vehicles, you know, these are already driveline agnostic. You know, you're talking about camera mirror systems or driver information systems, you know, body control modules, you know, connectivity systems, it doesn't matter. Every truck needs it regardless of driveline. Really, that- that's focused almost entirely on the Control Devices space. The reality is, as you go from conventional internal combustion engines to electric vehicles, there's actually a greater trend toward electrified actions, if you will. You don't have mechanical shifters anymore. You have to have electric park lock actuators. You don't have manual four-wheel drive, i.e., connect an axle or disconnect an axle. It's always electrically, you're connecting or disconnecting to the electric motors. You have an enormous opportunity around thermal management, where you have actuators controlling coolant flow.
You have sensors, you know, giving you the right feedback to, to allow the control system to know where to place that coolant to provide, you know, efficient operation of the motor or the battery pack and, or the power electronics. As I view it, overall, as Stoneridge views it overall, for Control Devices, it's a market improvement and opportunity for us. As long as you've managed that transition. R ight? With the technologies that you're working on, or they can be applied to both, both driveline types.
Interesting. Thanks.
Yeah.
How are you thinking about capital allocation and balance sheet leverage, capital structure?
We talked this quarter about the fact that we expect to refinance our existing credit facility by the end of by the time we issue our 2023 financial statements. Obviously, with the amount of growth that we've got, we think that there's, you know, some opportunity to continue to put capital to work going forward, to really accelerate some of the strategic areas that we are in focus. You know, that said, obviously, with the growth profile that we've got, the backlog we've got, we don't think we need to do something transformational. We've kind of already done that over the last five years to the existing product portfolio.
You know, with the last couple of years of, of challenge on the supply chain side and production levels, we need to get the balance sheet back in a place that we can play offense. We're really focused on cash performance, particularly at some working capital generation, you know, turning working capital into cash. Inventory levels are a little bit higher than where they've been and where they should be going forward. We're really focused on getting the balance sheet in good shape, getting the credit facility refinanced to a structure that allows for some offense as we go forward.
You know, over the next 12 to 18 months, I think beyond just the organic support that we've got for the growth programs and the, and the product launch we've got, you know, we'll look at, we'll look at areas where we could strategically add to accelerate that, the, that product portfolio.
Obviously, you're calling for a step change in your EBITDA margin-
Yeah.
, you know, 11.5%-13.5% by 2027. Has the company ever operated at that level of margin before? What kind of, you know, gross or EBITDA, margin incrementals are assumed there? Obviously, there's got to be a lot of, you know, cycling past some, relatively fixed expenses. What is that? The, the, the development expenses-
Yeah
... for, for, you know, the, the, the MirrorEye system or. How, how do you ensure that the, you know, the cost structure doesn't, in, in, in, inflate, to, to eat up some of those, expected incremental?
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. The, you know, the company has operated historically with a much higher EBITDA margin level prior to 2019, which was really prior to the investment required to transition this portfolio to being the drivetrain, diagnostics, and Control Devices or really electronic, platform-based on the commercial vehicle side. There's been a tremendous amount of engineering investment and some structural investment to support that. That does not need to continue at the same rate, so you get a lot of fixed cost leverage.
When you look at the, the growth profile, you know, you know, $400 million-$500 million of growth over the next five years at a 25%-30% contribution margin on the incremental growth, you can get really accretive margin pretty quickly on, on the top line. The structure is in place to support that growth. The investment has been made over the last several years to support that growth. Now we can ratchet that down to a more normalized level, appreciate some of that, that top-line growth that falls to the bottom line. We've, we've operated low double-digit EBITDA historically, so it's not outside the realm for the company.
You know, the Brazil business, it always strikes me as a little bit of an odd duck, right? On the other hand, I, I think you've got, like, a high share there, and it might be a good returns. Just, you know, why are you kind of the natural owner of this business, and how does it fit into the strategy of the rest of the business?
Yeah, sure. Yeah, so, Brazil historically has been much more of a standalone business than it is now, and which is why we get this we've gotten this question frequently historically. That business, if you look at its core, is a local electronics manufacturing business with extremely competent engineering support in the local market, right, at a, at a fairly effective cost structure. When you look at our global business now, as we transition from segmented businesses, historically, Stoneridge, to a much more global business, the support of our customers in that region with our product portfolio, particularly the commercial vehicle side, and the utilization of those really capable engineers in that, in that region, allows us to support probably more engineering capability and capacity with, with not more cost, right?
It's global support for our existing customer base, it's globalization of that business, and then a structure that really supports our growth forward, utilizing that really competent, existing capability.
Any questions from the audience for Stoneridge? Yeah, over there.
For mirror?
For mobile, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, great question. The, the, the numbers that you see, whenever we do guidance, whenever we do backlog, it's all customer-based. It's until it launches, and then we look at actual option take rate. The customer will give us... You know, when we are awarded the program, they'll say, "Assume it's on X amount of trucks or X amount of percent of our volume," because ultimately a customer is gonna option it in or out of their build. That's the number we report, right? I can tell you for a fact that we think that it's greater than that, which is why we've invested so much in the platform.
When it goes to launch, we'll have actual data on how many customers are selecting that, what the option take rate is, and then you'll see us update that information as it launches. It's either customer information provided at the, at the award or actual information as we go into production, which we update pretty regularly on a, on a quarterly basis.
Can you lay out the value proposal you get?
You know, I think the biggest barrier at first is it's new technology. It's replacing, you know, particularly on the mirror side, it's replacing something that works, right? If I look in the mirror, generally, I can see what's behind me. I might miss quite a bit in my blind spot, but it's technology adoption, just like anything else. You know, if you go back and look in our industry, even seatbelts and airbags have taken a long time to fully adopt. Look at backup cameras, finally being regulated in United States produced vehicles. It's kind of an obvious value proposition once the technology is validated and appropriate to apply.
I think the biggest barrier has just been proving that it's a valid technology, showing that it works in snow and extra hot conditions, and all the different inclement weather variations that those vehicles encounter. Once the, once the, the fleets have seen that it's a, it's a, it's a valid technology in a good space, they're really excited to either adopt it, the pre-wire, the OEs that we're launching with, or even in the retrofit market. That's really been the, the biggest feedback to, to, to adoption at first.
Any final questions? We are over on the time, so.
All right.
We yield, we yield it back. Thank you so much, Jim and Matthew. We appreciate all the comments.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah.