Volvo Jan truck shipments tumble 51 pct

World number two truckmaker Volvo AB's truck deliveries plunged 51 percent year-on-year in January as demand evaporated across all its main markets due to the economic downturn, the company said on Tuesday.

Volvo, which sells trucks under brands such as Renault, Nissan Diesel and Mack as well as its own name, said in a statement deliveries in its biggest market, Europe, fell 54 percent while in North America they were down 67 percent."These are extremely weak delivery figures, but I think that pretty much everybody was expecting they would be," said a truck sector analyst who asked not to be identified."My guess is that this will not come as a shock and I would be very surprised if we saw a wave of estimate changes due to this January shipments figure."

The company said it delivered 10,232 units in total in January while shipments fell by double-digit percentages in all of the truckmaker's markets."The customers are adapting to the financial crisis and are postponing replacements of older trucks," the company said

Volvo and its peers in the European truck industry are struggling to cope with a collapse in demand due to the financial crisis and ensuing downturn.The Swedish truck maker is cutting thousands of jobs as it seeks to adjust production capacity, while order bookings for new trucks have slowed to a trickle.

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