Daimler’s Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche has confirmed that the company is adjusting its truck output in response to falling demand in Europe. Speaking at a small round-table interview recently at the Paris motor show, Zetsche said, “At the beginning of the year we said that we would expect to see a market development in Europe in 2012 of between zero and minus 10% compared to 2011. We stick to that forecast, with the only caveat that it looks much more like the lower end than the upper end of this range.”
In response to a question about a possible production cut at the truck production plant in Woerth following lower than expected Actros sales, Zetsche responded: “What we will make very sure of, in all of our businesses, is that at no point in time will we run the risk of building excessive inventory, which we then would have to deal with. Therefore, we are very flexible in the adjustment, in the ups and downs of our production, and it is just an economically more effective way to take out single days rather than changing line speed or changing hours per day.”
The Stuttgarter Zeitung recently reported that the Woerth plant would be suspended for four days in October to adjust inventory. During this time, the plant will be refitted to allow for production of a new model. In addition to the Actros, Woerth also builds the Axor and Atego.
The most important markets for Daimler in the first eight months of the year were the NAFTA region and Japan. In NAFTA, the company increased truck sales by 27% and vans sales by 19% compared with the same period of the previous year. In Japan, it posted a 60% overall truck sales increase. Last year, Daimler Trucks sold a total of 425,800 trucks around the world, a 20% rise from the 355,300 trucks sold in 2010
