Total deliveries of trucks from the Volvo Group's three truck companies increased 14% in North America and 1% overall through April this year, compared with the year-earlier period.
North America's 23,268 units topped last year's 20,438, while the overall total of 72,661 topped last year's 71,766.
Deliveries from Mack through April totaled 12,633 units, up 12% from the same period a year ago, again reflecting the historically strong order intake through 2005 and the first quarter of 2006. However, order support in April dropped significantly from the torrid pace of the first quarter, as Mack became one of the first North American truck companies to fill its available production slots for 2006 amid customer concern over the technical and cost issues surrounding the 2007 emissions regulations for heavy-duty diesel engines.
Renault deliveries through April totalled 27,021 trucks, a rise of 6% compared with the year-earlier period. Deliveries in Europe rose by 10% with deliveries in France up 6%.
Volvo Trucks' deliveries during the period January-April amounted to 33,007 vehicles, a decrease of 6% compared with the year-earlier period. In North America, deliveries rose by 16% and in Western Europe, deliveries declined by 1%. This is a result of the shift in production to the new Volvo FH and Volvo FM products at the beginning of the year. However, an increase was noted in Germany, where the number of deliveries rose 21% to 1,570 trucks.