Press releases 2003

Volvo IT has been commissioned to maintain and develop Ford-owned Volvo Cars' global customer order systems. The agreement will run until 2005 and is worth a total of SEK 70 million to Volvo IT.

AB Volvo hereby invites the mass media to a press conference on Monday, April 28 in conjunction with the release of the Volvo Group's report on the first quarter 2003.

The first Volvo Excavator built in the new Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) factory in China left the production line last week and was today delivered to the customer, ZheJiang YuZhong Construction Group, a supplier who is involved in the new Formula One racing track project in Shanghai.

Håkan Karlsson, 41, will assume the position of president of Volvo Bus Corporation on June 1 and will become a member of the Group Executive Committee. He succeeds Jan Engström who will assume another position within the Volvo Group that will be announced later. Håkan Karlsson is currently president of Volvo Logistics, a Group-wide unit responsible for transportation and logistics.

The Volvo Technology Award 2003 of SEK 200,000 was presented at the Annual General Meeting on April 9 to the group at Volvo Trucks North America and Volvo IT that developed the Volvo Link telematics system.

At the Annual General Meeting of AB Volvo on April 9, 2003, the shareholders adopted the Board's proposal to pay a dividend of SEK 8.00 per share, or a total of SEK 3,355,558,736, to the shareholders. April 14, 2003 was adopted as the record date for entitlement to receive the dividend. Payment of the dividend will be made through VPC (Swedish Central Securities Depository & Clearing Organization) on April 17, 2003.

Volvo Aero and Scandinavian Airlines have signed a contract whereby Volvo Aero is becoming the principal supplier of engine overhaul services for Scandinavian Airlines' and Spanair's MD80 fleet of aircraft. The contract, which covers the period up to and including 2006, is expected to be worth SEK 1.8 billion to Volvo Aero.

Volvo Aero Engine Services in Bromma, Stockholm, Sweden, has signed two contracts, with a combined value of more than SEK 280 M, covering overhaul of JT9D engines.One contract was signed with US-based General Electric and covers ten engines that will be maintained for several years. The order value is about SEK 180 M. The second contract, with an estimated value of SEK 100 M, is with the UK freight carrier MK-Airlines.

Today's inauguration by Volvo Trucks of its own factory in Russia makes this the first Western truck maker to establish its own production facility for heavy trucks in the country. The company initially expects to produce 200-300 trucks annualy for the Russian market.

Deliveries from Volvo's truck operations, which include Volvo Trucks, Mack Trucks, Inc. and Renault Trucks, increased by 10% for the month of February, compared with the same month last year. On a year-to-date basis, deliveries amounted to 22,785 trucks, an increase of 11% compared with the corresponding period in the preceding year. In Europe, deliveries increased by 13% while North America posted a 6% increase compared with the first two months in 2002.