The Volkswagen commercial vehicle subsidiary Traton has slightly increased its turnover in the first nine months despite declining sales figures.

The sales volume increased by three percent to 35.3 billion euros, although MAN, Scania, Volkswagen Truck & Bus and the US subsidiary Navistar, which has been renamed International, sold two percent fewer trucks and buses, as Traton announced in Munich on Monday. This was due to fewer discounts and a better product mix. The adjusted operating result (EBIT) improved by eleven percent to 3.26 billion euros, as Traton had already reported a week ago, while the operating return on sales was 9.3 (8.6) percent.

The Traton Management Board led by Christian Levin confirmed the forecast for the current year. "Although we are aware that the final quarter will be very challenging due to the continuing reluctance to buy, particularly in Europe, we still want to achieve the upper end of the range of an adjusted operating return on sales of eight to nine percent," said CFO Michael Jackstein. Incoming orders stagnated in the first nine months at just under 190,000 trucks and buses.

(Report by Alexander Hübner, edited by Myria Mildenberger. If you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)