Continental AG (CONA) Q3 2026 Earnings Report

The call was positive overall. Continental reported strong operational execution, a 14.9% adjusted EBIT margin, resilient underlying sales, premium replacement growth, balance-sheet improvement, progress on the ContiTech sale and upgraded full-year EBIT and free cash flow guidance. These strengths outweighed the acknowledged market weakness, negative volumes, ContiTech execution issues and significant raw material and profitability headwinds expected in Q4 and early 2027.

For FY 2026, Continental narrowed continuing-operations sales guidance to around EUR 13.5 billion to EUR 13.9 billion, raised adjusted EBIT margin guidance to around 13.4% to 14%, and raised adjusted free cash flow guidance to around EUR 1.0 billion to EUR 1.3 billion; EMEA sales are expected around the previous year level with margin slightly above the prior year, Americas sales slightly below prior year with margin around the range of the previous year, and APAC sales and margin slightly above the prior year comparison base, using a 4% to 5% sales corridor and a margin corridor of 1 percentage points, while ContiTech sales guidance is around EUR 4.2 billion to EUR 4.4 billion with adjusted EBIT margin of around 6.5% to 7.5% before IFRS 5 implications. For Q4, the company expects volume pressure, sequentially higher raw material costs with a significantly higher drop on EBIT, positive price/mix, commercial measures and operational efficiencies to provide support, but does not expect Q4 to repeat the strong margins seen in Q3; raw materials are expected to be a mid-to-high double-digit euro million amount in Q4, while the full-year 2027 raw-material headwind is expected to be in the low to mid-triple-digit million euro range, almost entirely concentrated in H1 '27 with a peak in Q1 and broadly neutral to slightly positive by H2.