Scania Strengthens Its Position in the European Market

Demand in Europe for Scania’s (STO:SCVA)(STO:SCVB) trucks is good and order bookings rose by 46 percent, compared to the first quarter of 2014 to 12,446 (8,500) trucks. Meanwhile, demand in Brazil and Russia weakened significantly.

Scania increased its market share in Europe during the first quarter of 2015 to 17.2 percent. This can be compared to 15.3 percent during the same period of 2014. Thus Scania has continued the positive trend which began last year with the transition to the Euro 6 emission standard.

"Our customer offering was very competitive in early 2014, as we had proved the performance of the new engines and had introduced Scania Streamline. We also had the market’s broadest Euro 6 engine range. We have now built further on this and have introduced additional improvements,” explains Scania’s President and CEO Martin Lundstedt.

Second and third generation Euro 6 engines have performed very well for our customers and in trade press tests and Scania’s position in the European market is very strong. Among other things, Scania has two engines with 410 and 450 horsepower, respectively, which only use SCR aftertreatment technology to meet the Euro 6 standard.

"We had high expectations for these engines and they are a great success. Meanwhile, the quality level of the trucks is high in general and we have entered new segments, which is driving sales growth of new truck applications that are based on Scania’s modular system,” says Henrik Henriksson, Head of Sales and Marketing.

Order bookings in Europe improved during the first quarter, both compared to early last year and to the fourth quarter of 2014.

"Demand is good in the major markets and the feedback we are getting from customers indicates that our performance is strong,” says Henriksson.

However, demand in Latin America and Eurasia has weakened sharply, mainly related to Brazil and Russia. Economic activity is at a low level and the second half of 2014 was characterised by a temporary boost in demand in both markets. Order bookings in Latin America decreased by 56 percent to 1,768 (4,000) units and order bookings Eurasia decreased by 91 percent to 271 (2,879) units.

Scania’s total order bookings amounted to 18,311 (19,032) trucks during the first quarter of 2015.

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