Gentex Corporation (NASDAQ:GNTX) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript October 25, 2024 9:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Josh O'Berski - Director of Investor Relations
Steve Downing - President and Chief Executive Officer
Neil Boehm - Chief Technology Officer
Kevin Nash - Chief Financial Officer, CAO, Vice President of Finance, and Treasurer

Conference Call Participants

Luke Junk - Baird
James Picariello - BNP Paribas
Ryan Brinkman - JP Morgan
Ron Jewsikow - Guggenheim Partners
Josh Nichols - B. Riley
Joseph Spak - UBS

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Gentex Corporation Third Quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Josh O'Berski, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Josh O'Berski

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to the Gentex Corporation Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Release Conference Call. I am Josh O'Berski, Gentex’s Director of Investor Relations, and I am joined by Steve Downing, President and CEO, Neil Boehm, CTO, and Kevin Nash, Vice President, Finance and CFO.

All contents of this conference call are the property of Gentex Corporation and may not be copied, published, reproduced, rebroadcast, retransmitted, transcribed or otherwise redistributed. Gentex Corporation will hold responsible and liable any party for any damages incurred by Gentex Corporation with respect to any unauthorized use of the contents of this conference call. This conference call contains forward looking information within the meaning of the Gentex Safe Harbor statement included in the Gentex Reports third quarter 2024 financial results press release from earlier this morning and is always shown on the Gentex website. Your participation in this conference call implies consent to these terms.

I will now hand the call over to Steve Downing for our prepared remarks. Steve?

Steve Downing

Thanks Josh. For the third quarter of 2024, the company reported net sales of $608.5 million compared to net sales of $575.8 million in the third quarter of last year. For the third quarter of 2024, global light vehicle production declined by 5% versus last year, as light vehicle production weakened across all major regions, but especially in our primary markets. When compared to the third quarter of last year, light vehicle production declined by 6% in our primary markets of North America, Europe, Japan, and Korea. This decline was significantly worse than the 3% quarter-over-quarter decline forecasted at the beginning of the quarter. The light vehicle production declines resulted in a sale shortfall of approximately $25 million to $30 million for the quarter, but despite that weakness in our end markets, we were able to outperform our primary markets by 12%