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Truck Market Recovering, Daimler Executives Say
The head of Daimler AG’s truck unit said worldwide truck demand may take several more years to return to pre-recession levels, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
The western European market will bottom out this year and post a “slight” increase for the full year, Andreas Renschler said near Daimler’s headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, Bloomberg said.
U.S. demand will rise by about 15% and emerging markets in Brazil, China and India will continue “stable” growth, he said.
In the United States, Mark Lambert, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Daimler Trucks North America, said he believed that the slide in truck sales had stopped and had “definitely turned the corner.
“I feel we are through the worst of the recession,” Lambert said at a media event Wednesday at the National Truck Equipment Association’s Work Truck show equipment exposition.
Lambert said the order board for Freightliner Trucks, DTNA’s flagship brand, was “full” through the first half of the year.
Renschler said the truck unit’s sales will be less than the 472,100 trucks delivered in 2008, adding he would “be happy to return to 2004 levels in two to three years.”
Daimler sold 408,000 trucks in 2004, compared with 259,000 last year, Bloomberg reported.