OPmobility Trims 2026 Outlook as 770 European Jobs Face the Axe

French automotive supplier OPmobility has gone back to the drawing board on its full-year 2026 targets, telling investors it now expects an operating margin of between €430m and €450m alongside free cash flow of more than €220m. Both figures sit below what the company had previously sketched out, a revision it attributes to car markets deteriorating more quickly than anticipated.

The downgrade arrives hand in hand with a restructuring programme that will erase roughly 770 positions across Germany and France. Executing the plan is expected to cost OPmobility between €120m and €130m during the current year. Germany absorbs the larger share of the pain, with around 460 roles on the line and production at the Sterbfritz exterior components site in Hesse possibly shifted to other German plants as overcapacity bites. France accounts for the remaining 310 positions, where output at Flers-en-Escrebieux is being pulled back and research and development activities are being reshuffled.

That R&D reorganisation is where the broader industry squeeze becomes visible. Incoming work on powertrains has shrunk as automakers trim development budgets ahead of the European Union’s 2035 ban on new combustion-engined cars, while hydrogen programmes on both sides of the Atlantic have been scrapped. As a result, activity at the Alphatech site in Venette and at Labège is being consolidated at nearby Lachelle. Lachelle and Sigmatech in Ain remain the group’s two French R&D hubs, and Europe still accounts for close to half of group turnover.

OPmobility is not retreating everywhere. The supplier continues to add capacity in North America and Asia, where growth prospects look brighter, and still expects net debt to come down from where it stood at the end of 2025. It has also moved to expand its product portfolio, recently striking a deal to acquire the lighting business of Hyundai Mobis. The mixed picture — home-market cuts against overseas investment — reflects a European supplier base caught between weak combustion demand, stalled hydrogen ambitions, and cost pressure from volatile raw material and component prices tied to Middle East tensions.

The guidance reset also lands against a backdrop of softer production forecasts, particularly in China, and cooling customer activity across Europe. For OPmobility, the challenge now is to stabilise margins while repositioning its engineering footprint around fewer, larger sites and shifting its growth bets toward regions and product lines less exposed to the continent’s powertrain transition.