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5. Visteon Corporation Business Report FY ended Dec. 2019

Visteon Corporation Business Report FY ended Dec. 2019

Factors
1) Net Sales
-The Company’s sales for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019 decreased by 1.3% over the previous year to USD 2,945 million. The consolidation of Changchun Visteon Faway Auto Electronics in the third quarter of 2018 increased sales by USD 38 million. New business, partially offset by unfavorable product volumes and product mix, increased sales by USD 22 million. Negative currency translation effects, specifically in Europe, China, Brazil and India, decreased sales by USD 59 million. Finally, changes in customer pricing further reduced sales by USD 71 million.

2) Net Income
-For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019, the Company had a net income of USD 70 million, a decrease of 57.3% from the previous year. The decrease in net income was primarily due to the decrease in gross margin; increased selling, general and administrative expenses; decreased other income and decreased equity in net income from non-consolidated affiliates. These decreases were partially offset by lower restructuring expenses and decreased provisions for income taxes.

Business Partnership

-The Company announced a plan to launch the joint development of autonomous driving technologies and digitalized intelligent cockpit solutions with Tencent initially for Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC) vehicle platforms. Under the agreement, the Company is going to incorporate Tencent Automotive Intelligence (TAI) solutions for smart cars in its SmartCore cockpit control platform. SmartCore is a single-chip multi-core processor that independently operates multiple displays and applications in the cockpit while offering passengers driving information and entertainment content. The Company thus provides robust and stable hardware to TAI solutions. In the future, the Company, Tencent, and GAC R&D will to jointly develop technologies for intelligent and connected cars and share research results for them. SmartCore cockpit solutions with TAI systems will be introduced in the market on GAC’s mass-production electric vehicles (EVs), which will be built on the new GAC EV platform for the first time starting in 2020. (From media reports on January 9, 2019)

Contracts

-The Company launched India’s first SmartCore cockpit domain controller powering the infotainment system and digital and hybrid instrument cluster variants on Tata Harrier. It drives the infotainment and instrument cluster domains on one system-on-chip, offering large thin-film transistor (TFT) displays with seamless human-machine interaction (HMI). The infotainment system variants offer display configurations ranging from 7-inch to 8.8-inch TFTs, while the instrument cluster options include a 4-inch LCD and a 7-inch color TFT - the first in the Indian market. The main infotainment features include easy device convergence through Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, voice recognition, Bluetooth and text-to-speech. The system also supports smartphone-based navigation and connected apps. (From a press release on May 28, 2019)

-The Company introduced the automotive industry’s first fully digital cluster displaying holographic objects on the all-new Peugeot 208. Part of Peugeot’s unique 3D i-Cockpit, the instrument cluster represents the first real 3D cluster in automotive production. Partnering with Groupe PSA to develop a pioneering “3D Blade” concept, the digital cluster displays advanced reflections to create the impressions of 3D graphics. The cluster is composed of a high-definition 10.25-inch “background” thin-film transistor (TFT) and a 7-inch “foreground” TFT projected on a semi-reflective blade. The leading-edge display creates a 3D projection of approximately 15 mm between the front and rear images. The display also allows animations to pass dynamically from the foreground to the background in ADAS modes or as 3D animations in a number of configurable colors and skins. (From a press release on March 28, 2019)

Outlook

-For the fiscal year ending December 31, 2020, the Company expects to have sales between USD 3,000 million and USD 3,100 million as well as an adjusted EBITDA between USD 250 million and USD 270 million. Note that this outlook excludes the estimated impact of the coronavirus, which the Company expects will negatively affect sales in the first quarter of 2020 by approximately USD 60 million.

R&D Facilities

-The Company has 20 technical centers located across the world.

-The Company celebrated the grand opening of a newly constructed engineering center in Queretaro, Mexico. The Visteon Queretaro Technical Center (VTCQ) is home to software, hardware and mechanical engineers responsible for developing advanced cockpit electronics products for OEMs in North America, including Ford, FCA, GM, Nissan and Honda. These products include digital instrument clusters, infotainment, information displays, and new technologies for connected and autonomous driving. Reflecting a MXN 175 million investment, the new 6,000-square-meter Queretaro engineering center includes two floors of collaborative workspace. The Company plans to create a complete technology campus and further expand its presence in Queretaro with construction of a new lab expected to be complete in the first half of 2020. The 2,175-square-meter lab will be minutes away from VTCQ and house 35 engineers and technicians, and include a 460-square meter mezzanine for up to another 70 engineers. It will be a unique laboratory building that will support vibration, environmental and EMC (electromagnetic compatibility) testing, and be a fully capable DV/PV certification testing laboratory with up to 20 testing chambers. (From a press release on October 22, 2019)

R&D Activities

-The Company is collaborating with 22 well-known partners to develop legally compliant, time-efficient and cost-effective validation methods for fully automated and autonomous driving functions (SAE L4 and L5). Together with its partners, the Company is developing a methodology for driving simulation validation to create a reliable test environment for fully automated and autonomous driving. The 48-month German research project VVMethoden (methodology for verification and validation of automated vehicles) is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and requires a wide range of levels that need to be simulated, validated and tested. Among other things, the Company can provide significant support in this project with a modular and flexible approach such as featured on its DriveCore system. The modular approach of DriveCore is based on an open hardware and software platform. (From a press release on August 22, 2019)

Product Development

Technologies shown at Automotive Electronics Congress
-The Company will exhibit DriveCore and its three core elements at the automotive electronics congress in Ludwigsburg, Germany. The DriveCore platform’s modular and flexible approach is based on an open hardware and software platform that allows automakers, developers and technology suppliers to collaborate on innovations for assisted and autonomous driving. It has three core elements. DriveCore Compute is a scalable modular hardware platform for assisted and autonomous driving. DriveCore Runtime is ASIL-B rated middleware with a specially developed communications layer for the exchange of large amounts of data in real time and open interfaces for easy integration of software components. DriveCore Studio is a software development kit with record and replay capabilities for test data. Based on these three components, the DriveCore platform enables a continuous development process for assisted and autonomous driving functions, from algorithm growth to testing of components, on the test bed or in simulations while also enabling over-the-air updates of hardware components. (From a press release on June 24, 2019)

Technologies shown at CES 2019
-The Company will show its smart, learning digital cockpit of the future at CES 2019, where it will demonstrate the integration of its SmartCore cockpit domain controller and scalable DriveCore autonomous driving controller that creates a seamless HMI between driver and vehicle. “We are focused on delivering a comprehensive, flexible and scalable digital cockpit solution for Level 3 and higher applications” said Company President and CEO Sachin Lawande. The cockpit domain controller integrates the instrument cluster, infotainment and other cockpit functions into a single ECU with advanced graphics, over-the-air software updates, and state-of-the-art cybersecurity. The cockpit electronics architecture supports a machine learning-based voice recognition and text-to-speech system and in-cabin driver/occupant detection and identification technology. The Company’s digital displays are based on LCD and OLED technologies, including some with curved and non-rectangular shapes. The Company will also demonstrate its new VX display solution that offers integrated haptic feedback, proximity sensing and knob-on-glass features, and the industry’s first V2X module that works with either Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC) or cellular networks. (From a press release on January 7, 2019)

-The Company expects to invest between USD 140 and 145 million in capital expenditures for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2020.