David Begleiter: Very helpful. Thank you.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Vincent Anderson with Stifel. Please go ahead.
Vincent Anderson: Yeah. Thanks. Good morning. I was hoping maybe you could just highlight a few areas where you have a very high degree of confidence in your organic volume outlook. Just given your otherwise conservative macro view and maybe just separating between products that have been growing consistently over the years. And just for overshadowed in 2023 versus products where your customer feedback is what gives you a high degree of confidence?
Celeste Mastin: Got it. Good morning, Vincent. Sure. Let me just talk a little bit about some of the wins that we have had, because I think that helps convey where my confidence is coming from and you can really get a feel for how the how portfolio is growing. So our electronic space has really ramped up and our team is winning repeatedly there. For example, those new foldable phones, as it happens, those are really hard to bond to, because you are bonding a pretty flexible screen and really small bond line at hinge. So we have successfully secured new applications in that foldable phone space. That’s a growing category. So and that’s a really demanding application. So that’s a good example. In automotive, the automotive business has been really interesting this year.
So throughout 2023 we saw as do many others double-digit growth in automotive on a global level and actually when I look at Q4, what I found particularly notable, was that growth continued in automotive in Europe at that double-digit rate and part of that is because we have brought some new products to market there. By the way, during Q4 in the U.S. we finally saw a cooling, but I really think that that is just related to the strike and an anomaly. But back to the wins in automotive, when you think about how the technology is developing in a car, it — we call the development conversion, because we are seeing a lot of these big kind of glass dashboards in automotive that have been recently introduced we are winning. We just want a big actually with an OEM on that big glass dash and we won that because of conversion.
We understood what it took to bond a touchscreen, touch panel because of our work in phones and electronics and were able to get there faster for our customer than anyone else. So really good growth in that EA space, plus this addition of the ePower category, which we are pretty bullish about ePower. When we talk about ePower, we are talking about kind of sealing and bonding and thermal management applications in — for power storage and batteries and we now have 17 customers signed up and buying our EV protect product, our unique products there, which facilitates thermal management. So those are some examples in EA. When you look at the CA business, we expect roofing to bounce back in 2024. Also I am seeing some great wins in our infrastructure market segment.
Let me tell you about this one because I think this really helps — makes our acquisition strategy come to life as it relates to infrastructure. We bought a company called GSSI about a year ago, that makes Beutel-based tape for metal bonding. So think about metal buildings, for example. And we also bought a company called XCHEM in the Middle East that had some experience in infrastructure. And so we have started to localize our very popular Foster’s brand product at XCHEM now to support these big Middle East infrastructure projects, and at the same time, we have taken this Beutel-based tape from GSSI and rebranded it Fosters and introduced it as a system in the Middle East and we actually just recently won a bid Phase 1 application in Qatar in one of the big LNG projects.
So I am bullish about infrastructure. I am excited that roofing is bouncing back, that’s the CA business. And then there HHC, these guys are just — guys and gals are delivering like crazy. And our hygiene segment, we have introduced a pad fastening adhesive, that bonds to some of these hard bond substrates so that — that’s gone well, that’s a big category for us. Also in packaging, our team is — I am getting a contract across my desk every week for some big CPG customer packaging contract. So we have done well there. Part of that is our focus on sustainability, which has really evolved in the packaging space and has created a renaissance opportunity for us in HHC and then, of course, I spoke to our now most recent success with adhesion in the tissue bonding and sealing applications really excited that we are getting that product for topical skin bonding, as well as the SecurePortIV product now into hospitals around the country.
So we have got — we just — we have got a lot of momentum, Vincent. And just every day I am seeing wins and feeling bullish about what these GBUs can do well.
Vincent Anderson: Well, all right. That’s excellent. Then my follow-up was on Fosters anyway.
