On September 1, Helios Technologies (NYSE:HLIO) announced that its Electronics segment had expanded the No Roads platform with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, bringing familiar smartphone integration to boats, ATVs, and off-road rigs that never touch pavement. The announcement landed three weeks after Helios posted a second quarter in which that same Electronics segment expanded gross margin by more than 500 basis points, and it came alongside a raised full-year outlook. For a company known for hydraulic cylinders and industrial controls, chasing smartphone connectivity is a notable shift in emphasis.
No Roads was built jointly by Enovation Controls and i3 Product Development, pairing hardware built for rugged, integrated displays with i3's software and connected-product design work. Billy Aldridge, President of Electronics for Helios, described the Apple CarPlay and Android Auto rollout as a foundation for future connected capabilities rather than a standalone feature, and pointed to powersports, marine, overlanding, and specialty-vehicle OEMs as customers who now have a reason to look at Helios displays.
CEO Sean Bagan tied the move to a broader pattern of combining the company's operating units to build differentiated products, extending value to existing customers while pursuing new business in adjacent markets. The segment's own numbers back up that framing. Electronics sales climbed 19% in the second quarter of 2026 to $85.5 million, while gross margin expanded 530 basis points to 34.6%, pushing operating income up 90% to $11.2 million. That kind of margin expansion tends to show up when a business shifts from generic hardware toward harder-to-copy, differentiated products, which is exactly the case Helios is building for No Roads.
The company backed that story up at the corporate level too, raising its full-year 2026 sales outlook to $880 million to $900 million, up from a prior range of $840 million to $870 million, while cutting net debt to 1.4 times adjusted EBITDA from 2.6 times a year earlier.
Helios has not disclosed what No Roads, or the CarPlay and Android Auto features specifically, contribute to revenue, so the financial case for this rollout rests on management's framing rather than a number investors can independently verify. CFO Jeremy Evans tempered the company's own optimism when he flagged tougher year-over-year comparisons in the second half, along with geopolitical uncertainty, tariff dynamics, and broader inflationary pressures as ongoing headwinds.
#auto #expanded
No Roads was built jointly by Enovation Controls and i3 Product Development, pairing hardware built for rugged, integrated displays with i3's software and connected-product design work. Billy Aldridge, President of Electronics for Helios, described the Apple CarPlay and Android Auto rollout as a foundation for future connected capabilities rather than a standalone feature, and pointed to powersports, marine, overlanding, and specialty-vehicle OEMs as customers who now have a reason to look at Helios displays.
CEO Sean Bagan tied the move to a broader pattern of combining the company's operating units to build differentiated products, extending value to existing customers while pursuing new business in adjacent markets. The segment's own numbers back up that framing. Electronics sales climbed 19% in the second quarter of 2026 to $85.5 million, while gross margin expanded 530 basis points to 34.6%, pushing operating income up 90% to $11.2 million. That kind of margin expansion tends to show up when a business shifts from generic hardware toward harder-to-copy, differentiated products, which is exactly the case Helios is building for No Roads.
The company backed that story up at the corporate level too, raising its full-year 2026 sales outlook to $880 million to $900 million, up from a prior range of $840 million to $870 million, while cutting net debt to 1.4 times adjusted EBITDA from 2.6 times a year earlier.
Helios has not disclosed what No Roads, or the CarPlay and Android Auto features specifically, contribute to revenue, so the financial case for this rollout rests on management's framing rather than a number investors can independently verify. CFO Jeremy Evans tempered the company's own optimism when he flagged tougher year-over-year comparisons in the second half, along with geopolitical uncertainty, tariff dynamics, and broader inflationary pressures as ongoing headwinds.
#auto #expanded
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