BRICs to Lead Truck Growth, Europe Faltering: Daimler

Brazil, Russia, India and China, collectively known as the BRIC countries, will be key to success for truck manufacturers as competition continues to intensify in the industry and Europe remains volatile, one of Daimler's board members told CNBC Tuesday.

David Zalubowski

Mercedes Benz.

“We’re seeing very volatile markets around the world and Europe is one of them, [but] Daimler is balancing the different markets very well. The competition is very tough but you can only be a winner in this game if you are truly global.

"The different markets in BRICs are where the growth will be. Then you have the chance to be number one and we’re in the game to win,” Andreas Renschler, board member at Daimler told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe”.

The term BRIC was coined by Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs a decade ago to define the progressive, emerging economies that would see strong levels of growth.

Renschler said China – the biggest truck market – would be key to Daimler’s success going forward.

He admitted that the tough European environment would hamper results in 2012 with the European trucking market between 0 and -10 percent.

“Europe is one of the volatile markets we see today, it’s very tough to look ahead to 2013 but we need a stable political decision that will stabilize the euro that will help customers purchase trucks,” he said.

Leading car manufacturers are gathered in Hannover for the 64th international motor show.

Daimler retains the top spot as truck manufacturer but is being closely chased by Volkswagen which has been vocal about its intention to dethrone Daimler from the number one slot.

However, he said despite the negative outlook for the region, Daimler’s best shot was to be prepared with a good degree of flexibility.

He said the U.S. remained a stable market with numbers for the year up by around 20-25 percent.

“It’s not as strong as people thought at the start of the year but the order intake in slowly increasing and things should stay stable for the U.S. in 2013,” he added.