Advance Auto Parts Names OSRAM Sylvania Inc. Global 2025 Vendor Partner of the Year

RALEIGH, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 9, 2026--

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“OSRAM Sylvania has been an exceptional partner to Advance Auto Parts in 2025, in part because of their strong collaboration with our stores, supply chain, inventory, marketing, and merchandising teams,” said Bruce Starnes, executive vice president, chief merchant at Advance Auto Parts. “The OSRAM team has a ‘yes-we can’ philosophy and their collaboration is a critical element that enables our team members to get customers back on the road. We congratulate Sylvania as our Vendor of the Year and are excited to grow our partnership and sales together in 2026.”

Additional 2025 Vendor of the Year Category Award Winners include the following:

Pro Vendor of the Year – GSP
GSP embodies what it means to be a partner in the professional business and helped Advance grow its business while always putting the customer first and working cross functionally.

2025 DIY Vendor of the Year – Valvoline Global
Valvoline’s performance and partnership delivered business growth, in part by introducing innovative new products, providing actionable, data-driven category management insights, and bringing fresh, exciting opportunities to promotional offerings.

2025 Vendor Rep of the Year - Tasco
Tasco exemplifies collaboration and has consistently gone above and beyond to strengthen their relationship with Advance and drive mutual success, in part by creating opportunities and exhibiting an unmatched commitment to follow-through.

2025 Visionary Vendor of the Year – Winhere Brakes
Winhere’s commitment to delivering a high-quality, reliable product, paired with their willingness to step up and help Advance drive the business forward set the benchmark for partnership and performance.

2025 Supply Chain Vendor of the Year and 2025 Inventory Vendor of the Year – Back Room – GRI Engineering
As an award winner in two categories, GRI helped deliver key supply chain and inventory performance metric improvements through operational excellence and a strong commitment to meeting service-level expectations, as well as by being proactive in implementing change.

2025 Inventory Vendor of the Year – Front Room – Amalie
Amalie’s best-in-class execution and seamless logistics coupled with their collaboration and flexibility figured largely in a performance that is best described as highly engaged and adaptable.

2025 E-Commerce Vendor of the Year – Premium Guard
With their commitment to collaboration, Premium Guard ensured that both content and experience were at 100 percent, while consistently providing excellent communication around the status of new assets being created.

2025 Content Vendor of the Year – Motorad and Josco
Working seamlessly together, both Motorad’s and Josco’s proactive approach, responsiveness, and dedication to quality served to strengthen Advance’s customer- and store team member-facing content.

2025 Marketing Vendor of the Year - GlueIQ
Demonstrating strategic vision, creative excellence, and a collaborative spirit, GlueIQ is a valued partner who drove transformative growth and elevated Advance’s brand across every channel by seamlessly blending strategic vision with creative execution.

About Advance Auto Parts:
Advance Auto Parts, Inc. is a leading automotive aftermarket parts provider that serves both professional installers and do-it-yourself customers. As of October 4, 2025, Advance operated 4,297 stores primarily within the United States, with additional locations in Canada, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Company also served 814 independently owned Carquest branded stores across these locations in addition to Mexico and various Caribbean islands. Additional information about Advance, including employment opportunities, customer services and online shopping for parts, accessories and other offerings can be found at www.AdvanceAutoParts.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements herein are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are usually identifiable by words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast, “guidance,” “intend,” “likely,” “may,” “plan,” “position,” “possible,” “potential,” “probable,” “project,” “should,” “strategy,” “target,” “will,” or similar language. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements about the Company’s strategic initiatives, restructuring and asset optimization plans, financial objectives, including with respect to the Company's reorganized debt capital structure, operational plans and objectives, statements about the benefits of the Company's Worldpac sale and use of proceeds therefrom, statements regarding expectations for economic conditions, future business and financial performance, including with respect to tariffs, as well as statements regarding underlying assumptions related thereto. Forward-looking statements reflect the Company’s views based on historical results, current information and assumptions related to future developments. Except as may be required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made herein. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied by the forward-looking statements. They include, among others, the Company’s ability to hire, train and retain qualified employees, the timing and implementation of strategic initiatives, risks associated with the Company’s restructuring and asset optimization plans, risks relating to incurrence of indebtedness and increased leverage, risks relating to the Company's credit ratings or perceived creditworthiness, deterioration of general macroeconomic conditions, geopolitical factors including increased tariffs and trade restrictions, the highly competitive nature of the industry, demand for the Company’s products and services, risks relating to the impairment of assets, including intangible assets such as goodwill, access to financing on favorable terms, complexities in the Company’s inventory and supply chain and challenges with transforming and growing its business. Please refer to “Item 1A. Risk Factors” of the Company’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), as updated by the Company’s subsequent filings with the SEC, for a description of these and other risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied by the forward-looking statements.

Advance Auto Parts, Inc. (NYSE: AAP), a leading automotive aftermarket parts provider in North America serving professional installers and do-it-yourself customers, presented its 2025 Vendor of the Year Award to OSRAM Sylvania Inc. at “Accelerate” – Advance’s vendor appreciation and field leader kickoff event in Orlando, Fla. The annual event brings together valued vendors and team members in one place to fuel the energy behind the execution of Advance’s strategic plan, and to honor the company’s partners that make a positive impact on the business and its customers. Nine additional vendors were recognized at the awards ceremony for their contributions.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Protests sweeping across Iran neared the two-week mark Saturday, with the country’s government acknowledging the ongoing demonstrations despite an intensifying crackdown and as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world.

With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. But the death toll in the protests has grown to at least 72 people killed and over 2,300 others detained, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. Iranian state TV is reporting on security force casualties while portraying control over the nation.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has signaled a coming clampdown, despite U.S. warnings. Tehran escalated its threats Saturday, with the Iran’s attorney general, Mohammad Movahedi Azad, warning that anyone taking part in protests will be considered an “enemy of God,” a death-penalty charge. The statement carried by Iranian state television said even those who “helped rioters” would face the charge.

“Prosecutors must carefully and without delay, by issuing indictments, prepare the grounds for the trial and decisive confrontation with those who, by betraying the nation and creating insecurity, seek foreign domination over the country,” the statement read. “Proceedings must be conducted without leniency, compassion or indulgence.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered support for the protesters.

“The United States supports the brave people of Iran,” Rubio wrote Saturday on the social platform X. The State Department separately warned: “Do not play games with President Trump. When he says he’ll do something, he means it.”

Saturday marks the start of the work week in Iran, but many schools and universities reportedly held online classes, Iranian state TV reported. Internal Iranian government websites are believed to be functioning.

State TV repeatedly played a driving, martial orchestral arrangement from the “Epic of Khorramshahr” by Iranian composer Majid Entezami, while showing pro-government demonstrations. The song, aired repeatedly during the 12-day war launched by Israel, honors Iran's 1982 liberation of the city of Khorramshahr during the Iran-Iraq war. It has been used in videos of protesting women cutting away their hair to protest the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini as well.

“Field reports indicate that peace prevailed in most cities of the country at night,” a state TV anchor reported. “After a number of armed terrorists attacked public places and set fire to people’s private property last night, there was no news of any gathering or chaos in Tehran and most provinces last night.”

That was directly contradicted by an online video verified by The Associated Press that showed demonstrations in northern Tehran's Saadat Abad area, with what appeared to be thousands on the street.

“Death to Khamenei!” a man chanted.

The semiofficial Fars news agency, believed to be close to Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and one of the few media outlets able to publish to the outside world, released surveillance camera footage of what it said came from demonstrations in Isfahan. In it, a protester appeared to fire a long gun, while others set fires and threw gasoline bombs at what appeared to be a government compound.

The Young Journalists' Club, associated with state TV, reported that protesters killed three members of the Guard’s all-volunteer Basij force in the city of Gachsaran. It also reported a security official was stabbed to death in Hamadan province, a police officer killed in the port city of Bandar Abbas and another in Gilan, as well as one person slain in Mashhad.

The semiofficial Tasnim news agency, also close to the Guard, claimed authorities detained nearly 200 people belonging to what it described as “operational terrorist teams.” It alleged those arrested had weapons including firearms, grenades and gasoline bombs.

State television also aired footage of a funeral service attended by hundreds in Qom, a Shiite seminary city just south of Tehran.

Iran’s theocracy cut off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls on Thursday, though it allowed some state-owned and semiofficial media to publish. Qatar's state-funded Al Jazeera news network reported live from Iran, but they appeared to be the only major foreign outlet able to work.

Iran's exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who called for protests Thursday and Friday, asked in his latest message for demonstrators to take to the streets Saturday and Sunday. He urged protesters to carry Iran's old lion-and-sun flag and other national symbols used during the time of the shah to “claim public spaces as your own.”

Pahlavi's support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some protests, but it isn’t clear whether that’s support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country's economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran's theocracy.

Airlines have cancelled some flights into Iran over the demonstrations. Austrian Airlines said Saturday it had decided to suspend its flights to Iran “as a precautionary measure” through Monday. Turkish Airlines earlier announced the cancellation of 17 flights to three cities in Iran.

In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from video taken by an individual not employed by The Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran shows a fire as people protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from video taken by an individual not employed by The Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran shows people during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

This frame grab from a video released Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, by Iranian state television shows a man holding a device to document burning vehicles during a night of mass protests in Zanjan, Iran. (Iranian state TV via AP)