Sweden's Autoliv reports record orders for Veoneer before spin-off

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Autoliv (ALIVsdb.ST) (ALV.N), the world's largest maker of airbags and seatbelts, said it had seen record order intake over the past 12 months for its electronics business Veoneer and raised its longer-term forecast for some of its products.

The Swedish company, which plans to spin-off and list Veoneer in early July, said the electronics unit had recorded a 48 percent jump to $1.1 billion in annual order intake in the past 12 months.

Autoliv's passive safety business, which makes products such as airbags and seatbelts, has won a bigger market share at the expense of collapsed rival Takata in recent years. The passive safety business will retain the Autoliv name after the split.

But the company still has to convince investors that Veoneer can secure a larger share of its electronics market focused on self-driving cars and active safety products such as radars, vision systems, advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving software.

Autoliv repeated its targets for 2020 and 2022 for both its passive safety and electronics units.

"Our confidence in the targets is rising as we see the increasing order intake," Autoliv CEO Jan Carlson told Reuters in a interview ahead of investor presentations on Thursday.

Carlson, who is taking the helm at Veoneer and leaving his position at Autoliv, said more than $600 million of Veoneer's $1.1 billion order intake referred to the fast-growing active safety segment. This compared to nearly $450 million in 2017.

Autoliv also said it now saw a greater potential upside in its active safety market business, prompting it to marginally increase its 2025 sales target for this part of Veoneer to more than $4 billion from a previous estimate of around $4 billion.

Carlson said virtually all of Veoneer's $3 billion sales target in 2020 was already reflected in booked orders, while "more than half" of the $4 billion target in 2022 target was already orders on hand.

In the electronics business, Autoliv faces rivals such as Aptiv (APTV.N) and Intel (INTC.O). Competitors on the passive safety side include firms such as ZF and Key Safety Systems (KSS).

Autoliv shares, which are up more than 20 percent this year, rose 0.1 percent in early trading in Stockholm on Thursday.

(Reporting by Johannes Hellstrom and Esha Vaish in Stockholm; Editing by Edmund Blair)