US: Navistar expecting record profits in 2008
By: Glenn Brooks, Wednesday, May 28, 2008, AutomotiveWorld.com
Announcing an annual shareholders' meeting date of 5 September 2008, Navistar International says it is expecting to record revenues and "solid profitability" in 2008 despite the current weak US truck market."Midway through 2008, a much weaker year for the industry than even 2007, we are truly realizing the benefits of our growth strategy," Daniel C. Ustian, Navistar's chairman, president and chief executive officer is reported as saying in a company statement.
"We have clearly buffered ourselves from US and Canada industry cyclicality, as evidenced by revenues and profit set to exceed those of the first half of 2007 when industry volumes were 63 percent higher," Ustian adds.
Navistar's guidance on financial results for the first half of fiscal 2008 includes consolidated revenues of US$6.7bn-$6.9bn and manufacturing segment profit of US$375m-$425m.
"With recent billion-dollar-plus orders in our bus and defense businesses and considerable order receipt increases in our core truck markets, we expect to achieve record revenue in 2008. And, even more importantly, deliver nearly US$1bn in manufacturing segment profit," the chairman states.
The Illinois-based company has also detailed second quarter worldwide shipments of Class 6-7 medium trucks and Class 8 heavy trucks, school buses and expansion market vehicles of 27,200 units. This represents a 41% increase over the first quarter.
In other news, Navistar's US and Canadian dealers' stock inventories fell to a five-year low, while both year-to-date market share and order receipt share rose by an average of four percentage points across all vehicle lines versus the same period of 2007. Manufacturing cash balances were reported to be US$625m as at 30 April, 2008.
Published on Wednesday, May 28, 2008
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