Daimler Sees Its Truck Unit Surpassing Market in Coming Years

www.chinatrucks.com: The German luxury carmaker, Daimler, who is also the world’s largest truck maker, said that the global truck market is likely to grow at an annual 3%-4% until 2020, but that Daimler Trucks will surpass this rate. All Daimler Trucks’ brands, Mercedes-Benz, Fuso, Freightliner, Western Star, Thomas Built Buses, and BharatBenz, managed to sell 424,000 vehicles from January to November, an increase of 14.3% compared with the same period last year, thanks to strong demand in Asia and North America.

 

The German automaker said it expects global truck market to slightly increase in 2013, as the market conditions will remain challenging mainly because Europe’s ongoing debt crisis. In September Daimler Trucks announced it expects 2012 operating profit at least match the 2011 level of 1.88 billion euro ($2.49 billion). Earlier this month Daimler announced it will invest $100 million in its Redford Township facility, to add new technology and jobs.

“Daimler Trucks North America will become the first heavy-duty vehicle manufacturer in North America to offer a fully integrated powertrain from one production facility,” the Daimler official said. “And by making all parts — the engine, axles and transmission — of a truck in the same place, Daimler engineers can design each part so that it works more effectively with the others.”

 

Deliveries of heavy-duty vehicles are forecast to drop 4 percent in western Europe this year, according to the German industry association VDA. Currently MAN is in the process of integrating its truck operations with Scania, also controlled by VW, in an attempt to cut costs.

European heavy truck sales declined 9.1 percent in August to 14,436 units, according to industry group ACEA. Deliveries in the first eight months of the year also dropped 6.3 percent to 148,531 trucks. In response to weaker demand, some truckmakers plan to cut production. Daimler AG, Europe’s largest commercial-vehicle maker, plans to stop production at its truck plant in Woerth, Germany, for four days in October.

 

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