MAN, the Munich-based truck maker majority owned by Volkswagen, has joined rivals, including Volvo and Daimler, in predicting that Europe’s truck market will stagnate next year.
The warning came as the company reported Q3 net profit fell 64% to EUR61m (US$79m) as operating profit dropped 42% to EUR185m and sales fell 4% to EUR3.88bn.
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CEO Georg Pachta-Reyhofen described earnings as “unsatisfactory, which is why we will drive forward our efforts to cut costs”. But he pledged that the company would continue to invest in research and development and in sales and after-sales, areas that he described as “important for the future”.
Anders Nielsen, head of the company’s main truck and bus division, told analysts in a conference call that the company “is not overly concerned about the magnitude of the current crisis” which was not as dramatic as the truck market slump in 2009.
