Lear Corporation

Lear designs and builds car seats and the electrical systems that run through a vehicle. Its customers are automakers, not drivers: it supplies all of the world's major car manufacturers and has parts on more than 500 vehicle models. Its products fit gasoline cars as well as hybrids and fully electric vehicles. Its annual report for 2025 lists 258 manufacturing, engineering and office sites in 36 countries.

Seating is by far the larger business, with $17.3 billion, or 74.3%, of the $23.3 billion in revenue for the year ended December 31, 2025. Lear makes many seat parts itself, including leather and fabric covers, cushions, headrests, seat mechanisms, and heating, cooling and massage systems. It delivers finished seats to automakers' assembly lines just as they are needed. E-Systems brought in $6.0 billion, or 25.7%. It makes wire harnesses (bundled wiring), connectors, battery disconnect units that control power flowing into and out of electric-vehicle batteries, and electronic control modules with built-in software.

Lear earns money on each vehicle its customers build, so sales rise and fall with production volumes and how many Lear parts go into each car. Margins are thin: operating profit was 3.3 cents per dollar of sales in 2025. By region, Europe and Africa made up 34.5% of revenue, the United States 22.8%, Mexico 15.3% and China 13.1%.

• In Q3 FY2026 (ended Oct 3, 2026), revenue was $5.77B, up 1.6% from a year earlier, and net income was $136.6M (+26.2%).
• For fiscal 2025, revenue was $23.26B (-0.2% year over year; +6.4% a year from FY2020 to FY2025) with a 1.9% net margin.

• Over FY2021–FY2025: $1.24B in buybacks and $812.6M in dividends.
• Regular dividends per share grew -7.1% a year over 5 years (FY2020–FY2025).
• Dividends took 37.7% of earnings and 31.3% of free cash flow in the latest fiscal year.
• Shares outstanding changed -19.2% from Oct 29, 2021 to Oct 27, 2026.

Rank among 1514 US companies

Market value at each year end

Lear’s market value went from $9.29B at the end of 2016 to $5.63B on Oct 28, 2026, down 39%; since the end of 2025 it is down 5%.

Form 4 filings from 2025-10-31 to 2026-10-31 (25 read): 0 open-market purchases and 15 sales ($10.6M), 4 of them under pre-arranged 10b5-1 trading plans.

Large shareholders (13G filings)

ETFs with the most weight in LEA

1. Sales hinge on automakers' production schedules. Lear's sales depend on how many vehicles its customers build. An economic slowdown, strike or supply problem that cuts output at a major customer, especially on models Lear supplies heavily, can hurt sales and profits.
2. Chinese automakers are squeezing its biggest customers. Chinese carmakers are gaining share in China through electric vehicles, and abroad with new designs and attractive prices. Several traditional automakers, among Lear's largest customers, have lost revenue and market share.
3. Customer price cuts on already thin margins. Automakers impose price reductions on suppliers. If Lear cannot cut its own costs enough to offset them, profits shrink. With operating profit at 3.3% of revenue in 2025, there is little cushion.
4. Tariffs and trade limits could raise costs. Lear has sites in 36 countries, and Mexico alone accounted for 15.3% of 2025 revenue. Tariffs, sanctions, export controls and other trade restrictions could raise costs or disrupt its supply chain.
5. Must keep pace with the electric-vehicle shift. Electric and hybrid vehicles need different, higher-voltage parts. Lear makes some, such as battery disconnect units, but if it does not respond well to the shift toward electrification, it could lose business.
6. Swings in material, energy and labor costs. Prices for raw materials, energy, components and labor can be volatile. Lear negotiates with customers and suppliers and automates production to offset increases, but those steps may not cover the full impact.

• Oct 30, 2026 Quarterly results released
• Oct 19, 2026 Executive or board change
• Sep 24, 2026 Other company announcement
• Jul 31, 2026 Quarterly results released
• May 14, 2026 Shareholder vote results
• May 1, 2026 Quarterly results released
• Feb 4, 2026 Quarterly results released
• Oct 31, 2025 Quarterly results released

Lear pays a dividend but has not been raising it. The per-share payout was flat from 2022 through 2025, so there is no streak of increases. In 2025 the company paid $164.8 million in dividends, about 38% of net income and 31% of free cash flow (the cash left after running the business and paying for plants and equipment). The yield was 2.63% as of October 28, 2026. Lear has leaned more on buybacks: $1.24 billion from 2021 to 2025, versus $813 million in dividends. Its share count fell 17.4% between August 2021 and July 2026.

Downturns have hit the stock hard. In the 2020 COVID crash it dropped 43.5% between February 19 and March 18, 2020, and recovered by June 8, 2020. In the 2022 bear market it fell 37% from January 4 to June 16, 2022, and had not regained that peak as of October 28, 2026. A single stock carries more risk than a diversified fund.