Scania continues to give its shareholders and masters at parent company, Traton plenty to smile about, with the Swedish commercial vehicle maker registering a 15 per cent increase in net sales for the first nine months of 2019 compared with 2018, on the back of global sales of $AUD17.1 billion (SEK113 billion), .
Scania increased its profit in the first nine months this year by a whopping 37 percent or around $AUD 2.09 million (SEK13.88 million) with president and CEO Henrik Henriksson saying the the company is performing strongly and costs has steadily improved in each quarter this year.
Henriksson pointed out that, personnel in Scania’s operations globally stopped work for an hour in September in an effort to educate its 52,000 employees on climate change and the company’s sustainability pursuits.
“The measures put in place to reduce the higher long-term product cost level related to the new truck generation are continuing,” said Henriksson.
“Demand is now weaker than before and order bookings for trucks fell by 8 per cent in the first nine months of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018,” he added.
As part of the reason for the drop in demand Henriksson cited the fact that demand for trucks in Europe had slowed as a result of customer uncertainty about market development.
“Latin American demand is still recovering at a sluggish pace and the uncertainty related to global trade continues to have a negative impact on orders in Asia and Eurasia,” he added.
Henriksson said that demand for buses and coaches is slightly lower in the first nine months of 2019 compared with 2018, as was demand in the engine business as a result of lower order banks in Asia.
“At Busworld in October, the new Scania Citywide bus premiered which is our first fully electric series production bus and the first model in our new bus and coach generation,” he said.
“Electrified buses and trucks will play a crucial role in achieving a fossil-free transport system in the longer term. However, if we are to have a chance of reaching the Paris Agreement’s goal, solutions involving renewable fuels are required in order to bridge the period up to the cut-off point for a fully electrified transport system,” he said.
“Scania has invested for a long time in order to be able to offer a broad suite of transport and public transport solutions where vehicles operate on renewable fuels,” he concluded.Locally Scania has bounced back well from supply issues with its highly acclaimed NewTruck Generation range of heavy trucks in 2018 with its sales up 214 units on its figures for the first 10 months of 2018 with the brand likely to come close to breaking the 1200 truck tally for the year.
