Daimler's Commercial Vehicle Business: sales up by 17% to 180K trucks in 1H 2011
Sales expand in Western Europe and North America; building new plants in India and China
2011/11/04
- Summary
- Truck sales in January -June period of 2011 are up by 17% to 181K units, targeting 2013 sales at more than 500K units
- Daimler expects European and North American truck markets to expand by 30-40% in 2011
- Commercial vehicle business: revenue up by 5% and EBIT jumps by 74.9% in January to June period of 2011
- European, US and Japanese markets: Daimler to create total 2,300 jobs in Germany and US
- Emerging markets: Daimler to build new plants in India and China, while expanding production capacity in Brazil
- New models: Daimler launches heavy-duty truck Actros in conformance to Euro 6 emission gas standards
- (Reference) Daimler's production of medium- and heavy-duty trucks and buses by country
Summary
Daimler AG makes about 30% of total sales through the commercial vehicle business, which consists of the three divisions of Daimler Trucks, Mercedes-Benz Vans and Daimler Buses.
Compared to 2009 when sales volume drastically declined due to the financial crunch, the 2010 sales of Daimler Trucks were up by 37% to 355K units. Mercedes-Benz Vans and Daimler Buses had an increase in sales by 35.4% and 20.4%, respectively. In sales of the January - June period of 2011, the truck and the van divisions had growth by 17.1% and 15.0%, but the bus division had dropped by 4.8%.
Daimler received orders for 240K trucks in the first half of 2011, which was the best record since the peak year of 2006. The German company expects that 2011 full-year sales will exceed those of the previous year. Daimler sees that sales of vans will increase but those of buses will stay flat.
The medium- and heavy-duty truck markets in Western Europe and North America started on a recovery trend. Daimler plans to hire 2,300 new workers to meet the expansion of production in Germany and the US. To catch up with expanding demand in the emerging markets, Daimler will build new plants in India and China, and expand production capacity in Brazil.
Launch of new models in 2011 include the Mercedes-Benz Citaro, a city bus, and the Actros, its first Euro6 compliant heavy-duty truck. As for electric vehicles, the medium hybrid truck Atego has been available since September 2010. In addition, the Vito E-CELL, the first electric van of Mercedes-Benz, is in the limited-production phase. It has undergone test drives on roads for demonstration experiments.
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