Volvo, the world’s second biggest truck maker, said on Tuesday its truck deliveries rose 3% in January to the end of November.
Volvo delivered 201,050 trucks in the period, up from 194,609 a year earlier. This would mean shipments in November alone rose 1.8% year-on-year to 20,082 trucks, according to Reuters‘ calculations.
“It was exactly what I had expected, a little better in Asia and a little worse in Europe, but still very good,” Hampus Engellau, analyst at Handelsbanken, told the news agency.
A buying spree of older, but cheaper, trucks ahead of new environmental rules on both sides of the Atlantic, implemented in October in Europe and at the turn of the year in the United States, have lifted truck sales in recent quarters, Reuters noted.
It added that truck makers and sector analysts now predict a sharp fall in sales over coming months, especially in North America where Volvo has said the market could fall by 40% in the first half of 2007.
Volvo’s truck deliveries in Europe rose 3.8% year-on-year in November, according to Reuters’ calculations, while they were down 3.1% in North America and 18% in Asia.
