Volvo said vehicle shipments fell sharply in October from last year, but a rise in deliveries compared with September offered hope the sector's headlong plunge in demand may have bottomed.
Shipments fell 41 per cent last month compared with a year earlier as the global economic downturn continued to weigh.
But "the majority of the truck operations have noted an increase in deliveries in October compared with September", Volvo said in a statement today.
Volvo, which sells trucks under the Renault, Nissan Diesel, Mack and Eicher brands as well as its own name, said deliveries were down 51 per cent year-on-year in Europe, its biggest market, and 28 per cent in North America.
In Asia, shipments of the Swedish group's heavy-duty trucks fell 35 per cent.
The global financial crisis hit the truck markets with full force late last year, pulling the plug on years of easy credit for purchases of new vehicles and plunging major economies across the world into deep recessions.
But signs of stabilisation from what Volvo chief executive Leif Johansson has described as the steepest downturn ever experienced by the highly cyclical truck industry have firmed in recent months, though a solid upturn remains elusive.
Volvo has forecast that the European truck market will halve at best this year while the already weak North American market contracts a further 30-40 per cent.
At 0826 GMT, Volvo shares were up 0.1 per cent at 71.80 Swedish crowns, lagging the DJ Stoxx European autos index which rose 0.8 per cent.
Reuters