When Scania began exporting trucks in 1910, the first vehicle went to St. Petersburg, Russia. Scania will celebrate its 100th anniversary in Russia by inaugurating an industrial facility in St. Petersburg for assembling and outfitting trucks for the Russian market.
From the new Delivery Centre, Scania will supply complete trucks that are adapted to Russia's requirements and operating conditions that. The establishment of this facility is part of Scania’s strategy to strengthen its position in the important Russian market.
“This facility enables us to move the factory gate closer to the customer, shorten delivery times, and greatly improve Scania’s customer support in the Russian market,” says Johan Balck, head of the Delivery Centre in St. Petersburg.
The St. Petersburg facility has a technical assembly capacity of about 5,000 truck chassis and 1,500 superstructures per year. It will initially have about 70 employees.
Scania will work together with a number of locally selected suppliers of superstructures and equipment. Working with local suppliers will mean short lead and delivery times, which will be an advantage to Scania’s expansion in Russia.
The Russian facility is Scania’s sixth delivery center. The others are in South Africa, Dubai, Malaysia, Thailand and South Korea.
Since its first sale to Russia a century ago, Scania has delivered about 22,000 additional trucks and buses to the Russian market, most of them in the past decade.
After a sharp downturn in demand during the recent financial crisis, the Russia market is now rebounding.
