Press releases 2002

At the Busworld bus show, which recently came to an end in Shanghai, Volvo Buses captured the "Coach of the Year 2002" and "Bus of the Year 2002" awards. The prize-winning coach was a Volvo B10 M with a bodybuilt by Xian Silver Bus Corp., and the bus was a B 7 RLE with a body from Sunwin Corp, Shanghai. The awards were won in competitionwith all the coaches and buses on the Chinese market, presented at theExhibition.

Volvo Truck & Bus Thailand Co., Ltd. has through it's dealer Cherdchai Motor Sales delivered 107 units of B12 inter-city and coach buses to The Transport Company Ltd. in Bangkok, Thailand. Bodybuilding on these vehicles has been done by Cherdchai Industries in Nakorn Ratasima, Thailand. The delivery marks an important modernisation of the Transport Company's fleet of buses.

The Annual General Meeting of AB Volvo held on April 24, 2002 approved the Board of Directors' proposal that a dividend of SEK 8.00 per share be paid to shareholders, a total of SEK 3,355,558,736. The record date for receipt of dividends was set at April 29, 2002. The dividends will be distributed to shareholders through VPC (the Swedish Securities Register Center) on May 3, 2002.

Efter höstens varsel på Volvo Aero i Trollhättan står det nu klart att 236 anställda får lämna företaget. De avslutade MBL-förhandlingarna innebär att 168 personer sägs upp och att 68 erbjuds avtalspension. Totalt försvinner 303 arbetstillfällen i Trollhättan.

Deliveries from Volvo's truck operations, which comprises Volvo Trucks, Mack Trucks, and Renault Trucks, amounted to 33,322 trucks year to date compared with 42,139 trucks last year, a decrease of 21%. In Europe deliveries decreased by 24% to 20,821 while 7,442 trucks were delivered in North America, down by 27%.

Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) has decided to establish a wholly owned subsidiary and facility, Volvo Construction Equipment (China) Co., Ltd, for production of construction equipment in Shanghai, China. The new facility is scheduled to be in operation as from spring 2003 and will initially be used for the assembly of crawler excavators. The company will employ 150 to start with.

The first three months were also characterized by intensive efforts to phase in the new products that were launched in the second half of 2001. This particularly applied to Volvo Trucks, which is currently implementing the most extensive model replacement program ever. As previously announced, this replacement resulted in extensive ramp up activities in both production and for our suppliers. The most intensive part of the replacement process is over and production will start to catch up with orders in the second quarter. The strong demand for the trucks is of course a very positive sign, even if it has not improved earnings yet. Volvo CE is also going through an important product replacement phase, as the new generation of wheel loaders and excavators are set in production. The extended range of compact equipment has been very well received. Volvo CE's order intake increased significantly during the first quarter. Volvo Aero's sales and operating income dropped, mainly depending on the effects from September 11, which started to affect aerospace services during the first quarter. September 11, has also affected Volvo Buses with lower demand for coaches, says Leif Johansson, CEO.

AB Volvo hereby invites the mass media to a press conference on Monday, April 22 in conjunction with the release of the Volvo Group's report on the first quarter 2002.

On April 14, 2002, Volvo celebrates its 75th anniversary. On that day, it will be exactly 75 years since the first series-manufactured Volvo car, the Volvo ÖV4, rolled off the production line on the island of Hisingen, Gothenburg. Since then, Volvo has developed from a small local industry to one of the world's largest manufacturers of heavy trucks, buses and construction equipment, with more than 70 000 employees world wide and a presence in over 125 countries.

The Board of AB Volvo has decided that the employee stock option program already established for senior executives in the Volvo Group will be continued. As in the past, the stock option program will be performance related. No options were allotted for 2001.