Visteon triples Q1 net income

Automotive electronics parts supplier Visteon Corp. reported Thursday that its first-quarter net income more than tripled, reflecting higher electronics production volume and new business, as well as income from discontinued operations. 

Visteon’s net income skyrocketed year-over-year from $19 million to $63 million. The company said $8 million was attributed to discontinued operations, while $55 million constitutes earnings solely from the electronics product group, up 45 percent from a year earlier.

Total revenue for the electronics product group had a smaller increase of 2.1 percent to $810 million.

Visteon said the revenue rise resulted from higher production volumes and new product launches but was offset partially by negative currency exchange rates and customer pricing reductions.

The supplier won $1.5 billion in new business for the quarter with infotainment systems accounting for 44 percent of it.

Visteon stock rose 4.6 percent to close at $102.99.

“We had a strong first quarter, highlighted by record Electronics sales and adjusted EBITDA,” Visteon CEO Sachin Lawande said in a statement.

“We won significant new business that raised our order backlog to an all-time high, with noteworthy wins in infotainment and in Asia -- including our third SmartCore cockpit domain controller win and our first in China. We also benefited from key product launches at the end of 2016 and in early 2017.”

The supplier said it succeeded especially in Europe and China, where Visteon saw production volume growth of 6 and 7 percent. North American production growth was 3 percent.

For the full year, Visteon says it expects a 1 percent decrease in production volume in North America but a gain of 2 percent in both China and Europe. The supplier said it expects to see total revenue of between $3.1 billion and $3.2 billion for 2017.

Visteon is based in Van Buren Township, Mich., outside Detroit. It ranks No. 64 on Automotive News’ list of the top 100 global automotive parts suppliers, with $3.25 billion in parts sales in 2015.