Daimler Boosts Drive to Grow Truck Sales
Daimler AG’s truck business needs to accelerate spending cuts and deliveries to achieve its earnings goal and fulfill a savings and sales-growth plan through 2014, Bloomberg News reported, citing the new head of the trucks unit.
“We have a lot of catching up to do by the end of the year,” Wolfgang Bernhard, head of Daimler Trucks division, said at a press briefing Monday in Woerth, Germany, Bloomberg reported.
Daimler Trucks, which makes Mercedes-Benz, Freightliner, Western Star, Fuso and BharatBenz trucks, has a target this year of matching 2012’s earnings before interest and taxes.
Bernhard, who became head of Daimler Trucks in April, said the company has work to do to reach a targeted 1.6 billion euros ($2.09 billion) increase in earnings before interest and taxes by the end of next year through reduced costs and increased sales.
Industrywide registrations of new heavy trucks in Europe were down 12% through the first five months of the year from a year ago to 85,220 vehicles, Bloomberg reported, citing the Brussels-based ACEA industry group.
Daimler’s worldwide truck deliveries declined 3% in that period to just over 180,000 vehicles, with western European deliveries dropping 6.5% and North American demand down 2.5%, Daimler said, although new orders rose 19% to 212,000 units worldwide.
