Aptiv PLC (NYSE:APTV) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

John Murphy: And then just one quick follow-up on the bridge. I mean on the recoveries, I mean, it does seem like some of the automakers have almost a little bit remorse that recoveries were a little bit high last year, whether it be for commercial sentiments around volatility on schedules or raws. I mean, what is your kind of expectation there in these customer discussions this year? Do you expect them to be a little bit tougher. I mean they were — I wouldn’t call them generous last year, but they were more realistic last year than I have been in decades. Do you think they’re going to be a little bit tougher this year and there might be some reversal there? I mean what are those discussions like at the moment?

Kevin Clark: John, as you said, they’re always tough. It’s an industry with a tough pricing environment all the time. So those conversations are — they’re never easy. And what we’ve done in the past and what we are really focused on continuing to do is to bring value to our customers, one by keeping them connected; and then two, providing them with solutions that solve their toughest challenges that are cost-effective solutions. And to the extent you’re able to do both of those, I would say those conversations are less difficult, but they’re never not difficult. And our outlook — the team did a great job. Joe mentioned, the team did an outstanding job in 2022, both having those discussions and negotiating those €“ those price increases and at the same time, delivering record bookings. And that’s a process we’ll continue to go through in 2023.

John Murphy: Great. Thank you very much, guys.

Joe Massaro: Thanks, John.

Operator: Emmanuel Rosner from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Emmanuel Rosner: Thank you very much. Good morning.

Joe Massaro: Hi, Emmanuel.

Emmanuel Rosner: A couple of questions on margins, if I can. First one for the quarter. I think the margins were quite a bit softer than maybe we had anticipated, especially of very solid revenue outcome for the quarter. Can you please go back over some of the factors of this? I obviously heard you speak about COVID disruption in China, anything else? And specifically within us and U.S., it seems to be quite pronounced.

Joe Massaro: Yes, Emmanuel, it’s Joe. You’re right. I mean we continue to deliver on the top line, and I think this speaks to sort of a little bit around Rod’s question. It just continues to be a very disruptive environment, right? So we’re working through China, $20-plus million of impacts at the very near end of the quarter from both customer shutdowns as well as just us. As Kevin mentioned, we had 90% of our staff of 30,000 people come down with COVID in the fourth quarter. So it was a very disruptive production environment. We saw some of that in the US as well, as customers wrestle through the supply chain challenges, and we still got a lot of the stop-start production. So that, combined with sort of the FX impact call that, I think you mentioned 20 basis points, call that about $40 million in the quarter.