Scania initiates tourist coach sales in Austria

Scania initiates tourist coach sales in Austria Scania has now taken yet another major step in its busbuilding operations with the commencement of sales of bodied buses to Austria. The first of these - the Scania Irizar Century - is one of the new generation of tourist coaches. Scania, which has sold trucks in Austria for over 35 years, commands a strong position in the local market. Coinciding with the inauguration of a new dealership and service premises in Salzburg on 27 November 1998, an agreement was signed between Scania and Irizar, the Spanish bodybuilder, giving Scania exclusive sales rights to Irizar products in Austria. "We intend to capture a 10-20% share of the tourist coach market. And although we will be concentrating initially on that segment, we will expand our range in the longer term to include city and intercity buses," comments Håkan Sundström, MD of Scania Österreich. The level of integration between Scania buses and trucks is high. Up to 85% of the components in a tourist coach chassis are common to truck chassis. This ensures high parts availability and creates the conditions for troublefree maintenance at all of Scania's service workshops. Since Scania is responsible for the complete bus, including the Irizar components, the customer has just a single partner to deal with and has the support of the entire Scania organisation in Europe. The new Scania Irizar Century tourist coach was developed in collaboration with bodybuilder Irizar from the Basque country in northern Spain. The two companies have already been cooperating successfully for five years in most European markets. The world market for heavy buses - models with a passenger capacity of 30 and over - is approximately 60,000 annually, of which Europe accounts for about 16,000. With production facilities in Sweden, Denmark, France, Poland and Brazil, Scania is the fourth largest brand of busses in the world. For further information, please contact Ulf Söderström, tel. +46-8-553 81044; mobile +46-70-680 95 95 Scania is one of the world's leading manufacturers of trucks and buses for heavy transport applications, and of industrial and marine engines. With 23,800 employees and production facilities in Europe and Latin America, Scania is one of the most profitable companies in its sector. In 1997, turnover totalled SEK 39,700 million and income after financial items SEK 2,800 million. Scania products are marketed in about 100 countries worldwide and approximately 95% of total production is sold outside Sweden. Bus manufacture takes place in Sweden, Brazil, Denmark, France and Poland. Scania press releases are available on the Internet at www.scania.com ------------------------------------------------------------ Please visit http://www.bit.se for further information The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/1998/11/27/19981127BIT00090/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/1998/11/27/19981127BIT00090/bit0002.pdf