Daimler, MAN SE say world truck market may recover

Daimler AG and MAN SE, Europe's biggest and third-biggest truckmakers, said worldwide sales of heavy vehicles may match figures from before the recession by as early as 2012 as growth is pushed by emerging markets.

European manufacturers can speed up their recovery by establishing ties with competitors in countries with growing economies, Andreas Renschler, head of the Daimler Trucks division, said today at a conference in Frankfurt.

Brazil's industrywide truck sales are at a record high and China's "didn't collapse at all" during the global financial crisis, MAN Chief Executive Officer Georg Pachta-Reyhofen said at the conference. "By 2012 or 2013, we'll be back at pre- crisis levels, although not at the record sales" of 2008.

First-half exports by Germany's commercial-vehicle makers jumped by 57 percent from a year earlier, while full-year domestic sales of trucks weighing more than 6 tons may rise 5 percent, Matthias Wissmann, president of the German automakers association, or VDA, said at the conference. That compares with a 28 percent drop in German sales of trucks and buses in 2009.

MAN's shares have risen 33 percent this year, while Swedish truckmakers Volvo AB and Scania AG are the best performers on the eight-stock Bloomberg Europe Autos Index.