You, Peter Clemenson. And now we will be listening to a conversation between Martin Lundstedt and Mia Oderbas. Please, Mia and Martin, the stage is yours. Hi, Martin. Hi, Mia.
Well, right here. This man, you know him, I will just briefly introduce myself. Before we start, my name is Mia Oderbas, and I'm an economist at heart. I come from the School of Economics in Stockholm. I do realize that is not the right thing to say in this particular auditorium.
I worked as a journalist in financial and economic matters, primarily from Svenska Dagbladet, the Broadsheet and Swedish Television. And I've been a moderator over the past 10 years. I'm also actually a shareholder in Volvo. I have one share that I bought in 2007 as an experiment. And of course, you understand I have been through a journey of sorts, kind of a rollercoaster ride, you could say.
So I very much look forward to this conversation between myself and Maarten. It will be about the past year and of course, some glimpses into the future. Now Martin, you have just concluded your 1st full year as the CEO of Sweden's largest company. What's your most lasting impression? Oh, there are so many impressions.
It's a whole year we've been working together in the group, and it been a year that was characterized by fluctuations, but the greatest impression is with me is the people, all the people I've met. I'm still a rookie in Volvo, so I've spent a lot of time getting to know people and getting an idea of the operations and what's happening. So more people than machinery. Well, the people are the ones that make us successful. So during your first few months, you invest a lot of time in launching a new sales organization based on all these brands, the 14 brands we heard of in the film, 1 group, 14 brands.
What did you want to achieve with that? Well, to begin with, my favorite expression is 1 Group, 14 Brands because that is very much what describes the strength of the Volvo Group, because we're one group with a lot of joint strengths. And we also have the strengths of our individual markets and brands and regions. And what we have achieved, I believe, is that we are much closer to our customers as a group. That's number 1 for me because it begins and ends with the customer because money doesn't grow on trees.
The money comes from customers who want to work with us in different contexts and who think that we have the right solutions. We can create the conditions for decentralization. And decentralization in and of itself enables us to be more flexible, to meet quicker, to have to make quick executive decisions. And that's something that customers appreciate. And it also gives us an opportunity to work with the different strengths of the brands we have because not all of them start from the same place.
And we can work on constant improvements. And also, if I may say so, it's also about focusing on our service operations, and we'll come back to that. Yes, you're mentioning things. You're getting closer to the customer in different ways. That's already yielded some results.
We say United States, for example, that collapsed a little bit and you were closer to the customer and could adapt. Yes, and that's an important factor because it's both about the brand based organization, but also what we usually say, and that sounds a little bit technocratic, but that we have regional value chains, meaning we have regional structures that work together, anything from product development to procurement, production and market organization. And if you work in that dimension, for example, in North America, you can respond more quickly to fluctuations, both going up and going down. And what happened in the United States was that we saw a fairly strong dip in 2016. The market fell by from 300,000 units to 240,000.
But in terms of production, it was even more because you see inventory issues in a situation like that. About 5 or 10 years ago, I would say that we had shown very red numbers And now our North American organization contributed enormously, and they managed to keep us in the black at a fairly reasonable level. And that shows what that speed and flexibility means. Yes. And in Europe, it was the opposite.
You had to step on the pedal a bit there. Yes, but North America went down, say, 40% and Europe went up about 15%, also very positive. We have seen for some time that Europe has not fully recovered after the great crisis of 2008 and 2009. But we've done very well. It's been beneficial to us because the market recovered and then we could gain market shares for the Volvo brand as well.
So that was very positive. We ended at almost 17%. We will have a little watch a little film now from some of your employees You feel like dancing. Yes, I know. These are from unit trucks UD trucks in Japan and Renault trucks.
They're the ones dancing there at the end in Lyon. Is this how much fun you have at work every day at Volvo? Absolutely. But I think this description, I wanted personally to show these 2 films because it describes what we're about to do to recreate this pride in our brands. And in the identity that you can see here, these are the final 100 years.
Renault, our site in Lyon, they're celebrating their 100th anniversary, Very proud history. They want to build on that for the future. UD Trucks, same thing there. We are seeing going through an organizational process there right now that we'll see some results. So it's an enormous power there, both to look at from a brand perspective and from a regional perspective.
And this is produced by our own employees. This is not a massive production. This is you got you felt like doing something at work, you mean. Well, that I just it makes me so happy seeing this. It is wonderful.
That energy, you hope and Karl Henrik as well have talked about that up on stage. When it comes to the organizational change that we talked about just now, it's about switching some blocks around. But it's also very much about a cultural change, a mindset, a different way of work. And how do you change a culture of a company with almost 100,000 employees in 190 countries? Well, the group has initiated work.
We started in October 2015. I think it was October 2015. And when we talk about the values that we should adhere to within the Volvo Group, and that felt great because there are 5 values really that encompass all our brands and all our regions. And at the same time, they permit each brand to retain their own identity. As you may have seen those 5 values, I like them because the first one is customer focus, again, servicing our customers knowing that we have the right solutions.
And the number 5, the last one is performance or result. And somehow, it's those are the 2 products that are the most important to us, retaining customer focus and customer satisfaction and also that we do create the results, that we create room for maneuver. And in between those, we talk about trust, confidence, reliability. It's easy to say, but creating trust between employees, between hierarchies, regions, brands is difficult. We talk about passion for what we do.
And we talk about change. We live in a changing world, and we must be able to adapt. So we've worked very much with this on our day to day operations adapting the various parts of our operations. And it's been so satisfying to see how much this has fed energy to the organization. And I just want to say one more thing here because what's so interesting about this work is that because I usually say culture, you can't implement culture.
You say, we shall implement this or that, but you can't do that with culture. Culture is something that we, every single employee, feel am I part of this or not? We take that as an example that I may have told you before. It's like putting a tag here and it says attractive and then you go out one night and hope that, that will work. But it's not that easy.
It's about doing it for real. And very much what we started this conversation with is part of that work. You've said in one of the many interviews I've read with you, you've said that if there is fear, it will never turn out well. We talk about we work with trust, confidence and transparency because then you can work with change. You've got all of them in there.
Something else you've said, speaking of culture, you've said that it's easy to trick your superior managers, but you can never trick your subordinates. Have you talked to Karl Henrik about that? Yes, absolutely. No, but we have a very open and good dialogue, the 2 of us. But my point with that is that if we're going to affect change, real change with values and everything, then you have to be transparent.
You have to be open. You have to make use of all the skills that we have in the company, and the same applies to the figures. If there is fear in the organization, you will never see the correct figures. And the whole point of that is having if you don't have the right figures, you don't know what you need to improve and you will have the wrong bottom line. So they're interlinked very much.
Openness, transparency, proximity, harnessing all that skill that we have among our employees. And we look at it's about 7% overall, some distance to go to the 10%, 12% that some more outspoken major owners have talked about in the media. You've had several quarters with improved profitability behind you. Let's see what happens in April now 25th April, the Q1, when we presented what are the most important explanations for you here. Well, there are a number of explanations.
Just very briefly, you could say that the cost cutting program that we implemented in over the 3 or 4 years here has provided us with a very good platform. And that was done group wide. There has been a number of very tough decisions, not least for employees in several of our regions. But it was necessary. We had a structure and an organization that was too large and too complicated.
We had a certain degree of investment as well. So that has been a very important factor to get through that. And what we can see now, we're better at managing the fluctuations now. And in our industry, which is very volatile, both when it comes to trucks and construction equipment and buses, Managing that, being able to do that, that's incredibly important to be successful. And we can see now gradually both how sales in different regions are coming through.
We can see that we have the right market and product mix that we gain the business, the high quality business and how the service operations are also coming through. So there are several steps to that. But the next stage is what we talked about. How do we become a conglomerate of small companies that gel into a large group? And that's our next boost.
I'm convinced of it.
Well, the share price, you CEOs, you don't like to you're not there. But today, I like it. I was thinking you should like it. It's up from sort of 87, 127 now from the time you join, 1.5 years. You shouldn't have to comment those things, but I'm asking this way.
No, you're usually out seeing investors. Naturally, what do you speak about? What kind of questions do you pose you and what answers do you give? I think that primarily what we talk about when we the long investors that are in for long term, the institutions and investors who want to be shareholders through for long run, there is, I would say, 3, 4 questions that are really essential to them both that they feel and sort of an undergoing increase in profitability and they understand why that happens. That transparency and clarity, what has had been improved in our business?
Number 2, it's what we touched upon, our ability to handle the fluctuations in the market. You know that it's volatile. There are going to be fluctuations. And how do we handle that both when it comes to our flexibility, but also our service business for instance? Number 3, that we have a good balance when it comes to the money that we generate.
And we've got a responsible handling of
that both when it comes to investments
in the strong and clear balance sheet which can handle these fluctuations. And naturally, over time, that we give a good return to our shareholders simply. The last item which more and more comes through, is that the investors understand that there's a lot happening when it comes to new technology and very interested in what is our position and what does the future look like when it comes to new business models and technology. And in a minute, we're going to talk about that. But we're going to talk about a few other things.
Dividend, Karl Erik mentioned, up from 3 to 3.25. It's a long time ago since you raised it. It's called Henrik and the Board's decision. But how do you interpret it? I can see that I'm or myself sitting on the Board and being part of that discussion and that decision is going to be taken by the AGM.
But it's naturally so that we as management also see that should strike a good balance between the return to the shareholders that have maintained a strong balance sheet and we've got also means to invest for the future. This is a sign that one feels that this balance is there. And in spite of that, you can raise the dividends for the shareholders if that proposal is then adopted by the AUM. I think it's a good signal that we together feels that this company is on the right path. There is a sort of trend to divest as the CEO, Tasco, SCA today at the and the general meeting, they're going to decide about it.
There's also discussion of Volvo Group. Now please tell us what is going to be with Construction Equipment starting off with? Before we touch upon that particular issue, which been a long standing issue or debate, we can see that within the Board of Management, we've been very clear that we review the structure in the Volvo Group and come to a number of conclusions when business activities fit in better elsewhere. And Karl Erik mentioned Volvo, the external IT business for instance. And we're taking decisions, as you know, about disposing of Volvo Group governmental sales.
And that's not due to that they're bad businesses. On the contrary, 2 good businesses that we make the assessment for the future. How much do these activities share with the Volvo Group? And what conditions are there to create value in the long run? And we've come to the conclusion.
There are very good opportunities and possibilities with another owner and another group. Furthermore, we're on in a good spot when it comes to the Volvo Group governmental sales. We're proud of that, but we can be developed even better. When it comes to Volvo Construction Equipment, I'd just like to refer to what Karl Henning says. What we're saying now is that we've got a business where the management that's got a really good program when it comes to improving this business under incredibly difficult market conditions.
We had a China disappearing and slumps in most parts of the world both when it comes to mining sector and other sectors. In spite of that, our management and the whole group has managed to reverse that trend through a number of very good decisions and very much hard work. And I'd like to point out that we've been focused really on what are we really good at. We take market share in the heavy segments within the wheel loaders, within excavators and within the heavy dump trucks and dumpers, which is more of a construction equipment's hallmark. We improve our market share and our presence in various parts of the world.
We work with in a sensible way continued utilizing the possibilities we have within the Volvo Volvo Group. Now our 8 liter motor is going to go in here. It's a very good motor both for Volvo Construction Equipment and Volvo Penta. We developed this service, Nissan, etcetera. What we said on the contrary is that we should be transparent to our shareholders and to the outside world on how this business develops.
And that's the same way that we see that we're going towards when it comes to different brands and trucking. It's very exciting going forward. So what you first have is deliver the profits and then you potentially can discuss. But I think it would be wrong to deal with energy in speculating in that. We spend our energy on developing our business to become world class, and I promise you it's a full time job.
We'll return to that, I'm sure, to this long standing issue. Another part, a small part of all, but a very profitable part, there is a 30%, 14% margins. It's Penta. Penta. It is one of my favorite examples and we saw and I know several of my colleagues and associates who are here at the AGM.
But it's one of my favorite examples of what we want to accomplish with the entire decentralized brand based organization for Volvo. Penta, I usually describe as a small submarine. It's not so small. There's €10,000,000,000 in turnover, good profitability. And then you run your activities very professionally.
Lots of innovation falls. We've got several innovation awards during the year. We've got an integrated part with a whole propulsion mechanism with electronics, etcetera. And then you pull out the periscope and you look around and see what kind of Autogroup offer when it comes to synergies and possibilities. And when they've been shaking hands with the other business units on what they can do, they pull down the periscope and they run one's own business with full responsibility again.
It's shown become really good. It leads to very good results. As you said, 13% operating margin almost, very good growth. We've got market share gains in several of our core areas, not the least within the industrial segments, not just but it's fantastic, but not just what everyone thinks about Penta. More of that everywhere, more of that everywhere.
And that doesn't seem you want to sell. I'm not going to sell anything. Well, yes, the governmental sales. The EU Commission, you've made a settlement made SEK6.7 billion. What are you now going to do for that's never to be repeated again?
Primarily, when it comes to this, this is a topic that we take extremely seriously. I know that a lot of everyone sitting in this room have been upset about this. We have, both from management and from large of our export organization dealt a lot about DKK 6,700,000,000 that could be used for a lot better things for the Volvo Group. I'd like to say that this is a question that has been of immense importance to us. This is an investigation that actually goes more than 20 years back.
When this inquiry was started in 2011, the Volvo Group has fully cooperated with the EU Commission. That cooperation itself, total transparency, openness, own internal inquiries led to that when the suggestion from the EU Commission came on a settlement that the amount, which still is incredibly high, had been severely reduced. It depended upon that we've been working a lot together with the commission around these issues. When that came, then there was naturally a discussion on the balance. How should you view this?
Because there's a number of issues regarding this when it comes to infringement. But when we looked at the various factors here and balanced this, the Board and management came to the conclusion that instead of 4, 5 more process with an incredibly biggest downside risk, 4 to 5 times this amount, depending on how the antitrust rules is. The conclusion was what the most best and reasonable decision would be. In this, one should bear in mind that still this is not the full inquiry has not been published yet, but this is part publication. But we think that it's going to come in the next few months in the investigation when it comes to individuals that's also been out discussed.
There is no clear pointing out at any individuals this investigation, one should bear in mind, which also makes us we've spent a lot of resources in the group to further strengthen our work around this important area. Naturally, we want to gain our business because we've got the best solutions, won't we? Therefore, we've invested lots of resources in further strengthening and understanding and application of the code of conduct that we've got within Volvo, which already existed and was in place already. And we've further spent resources on that our associates understand and can apply and know when one is uncertain where to go to. We've also strengthened how do we cooperate with competitors.
We've also got experts helping our associates decide when can you cooperate a competitor and what does it look like. For instance, I'd like to point it out when EU and others for instance national government Sweden ask about the industry view when it comes to emissions, for instance. When it comes to the customer issue, it's true. And Peter Clemonson accounted for that as well that a number of claims have been received from customers received by Volvo. Our stance is clear in this matter.
We consider that our customers have not suffered any detriment depending on that this investigation and this settlement is not about transactions very important that we continue to ensure that we've got a good compliance and that we, in this way, also avoid at all being close to end up. And if we've got so good solutions, products and services and associates, then we should win business without being any doubt about it. So you're doing the after work and then preparing for the future. We talked a bit about some markets, but I was thinking that we should go through UR across the world. We talked about the United States.
That completely fell. What happened there? Not entirely. 40% drop, you said? That's not entirely.
But once again, if you look at what happened on the actual marketplace in the United States, it fell from 300,000 registrations to 240,000. So in light of that, all But when the market recedes as much, it's always so that you've got a little bit too much in the pipeline cars between us and our wholesalers in the market. So that meant our production levels had to be reduced even further. So you'd had to adjust for inventories. You're quite quick there to adjust.
It was quite interesting. Always when you think that you're I remember. We had a discussion. Maybe it was in December, perchance. December 2015, maybe we should reduce by 15%, 20%.
Then I usually think of what my mother used to say when it comes to if you got a newly born child and it's cold outdoors and as a new parent, you take so much clothes, your parent, and the tissues, my mother says take off half the clothes of the child that's going to be enough. If you think there's going to be 15% downturn, reduce by 30% because I've never been in a downturn that you've run dry on the inventory. We reduced by 30%, but we should have reduced by 40%. We learn. We get better.
There's a President on the other across the Atlantic that talk about protectionism. How do you handle that? I believe that this is quite a big issue. It's not just in the United States when I talk about this, but at all there's a lot of protectionism tendency in a more globalized world and those are the 2 different poles that we can observe. We talk a lot about it, both in the short term, how are we positioned.
And we've got strong regional systems. So in that way, it's necessary to handle those balances in a good way. But long term, it's actually so we're a global company that have built our success on free trade and exchange between regions and various systems. We've got 2%, 3% of our turnover in Sweden, almost 25% of our employees here. In spite of that, we've got 60% of the R and D.
We believe in free trade and exchange between regions. So we actually tried to show what a good global world and good free trade would I think and I think that's reasonable as well when it comes to this, for instance, corporate tax that we are a good taxpayer in the various parts of the world because it's often a misunderstanding that you should only pay in the country that the main office is. But then I think a lot of countries are going to feel that that was not right, was it? Just in the U. S, you've got the entire value chain as well.
So maybe you don't need to think exactly like Trump thinks. South America, we're just going to go a little quickly through this because we're going to have time to talk about trends. South America continued quite adverse. It's primarily Brazil, which is still down a low level. We see that it's coming back in Argentine, Peru.
When it comes to the mining sector, also in farming, we've got strong positions there. We've adjusted our apparatus and we've got a great organization. If we get some swing in the volumes there when it comes to the total market, it's going to be a good picture. But you pulled off the close there of the baby and the due course there. Yes, I shouldn't pull any further parallels, but we're down at very, very low levels.
Don't do that. But Europe is doing really well. So splendidly, you're taking market share of on a quite strong market. What's the primary explanation for this? Several.
We've got a good product program strong successfully. We've gotten our quality in order, but we further strengthened our quality work. We've got a really good and strong organization, which is like in most parts of the world, which is keen to take market share. So it's a good starting point, not the least for the Volvo brand. But we also see that Renault now starts moving.
They looked very happy, didn't they? But the fun thing is that we see it starting to move forward and prioritize the quality of the business at Renault, not the least when we launched new products. So they've got the right price levels, got the second hand values, etcetera. What's also gratifying is that our medium weight trucks for Renault is strong. So when Europe is strong and we've got industrial system which goes high powered, several of you maybe work there.
Thank you for that and would do your utmost. We need it. Asia then, it's been a bit adverse both in Japan and China, but there is the growth potential is there. How do you prepare to be part of this? Well, it's natural.
If you look at the demographic growth and the logistics systems around the world, there's a huge potential in India, China, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, etcetera. We've got a strong and good setup there. Both it has to do with our joint venture in Aisha in India and our quite new joint venture with Dongfeng in China and also with our UD Questa, which is more adjusted to these markets and now we just launched a medium heavy truck, a duty Krona in these segments. Can we, in a good way, use this ecosystem in its entirety for the major part of the volume within the regional and distance transport. We've got a good position, a strong organization working with that.
In
the same way, clear focus on this region. Furthermore, it's gratifying to see that some of the parts, the logistics starts becoming more mature. And then Volvo and Volvo brand, comes into play and therefore got strong position for instance in Korea, Taiwan within e trade in China, etcetera. You have to play all and all the entire piano. We do that with our different brands.
Lots is happening in the vehicle industry. Digitalization affects naturally, also you and the entire industry. The digitalization usually turns business cases tops. It's our internal business case. And primarily, we see 3 trends: self propelling vehicles automation and connected vehicles and about the electric powered electromobility.
Let's start by viewing film from 1 of the news that you presented last
Yes, some lovely machines. Maybe not as heartwarming as many of you see the people, but it is a self driving truck, yes? Yes. A little bit. It's a self driving car, who's rolling through the mines of Bowleden that was in inside the mountain and then you added a dumper, self driving dumper as well.
Very interesting. I know that when you launched this truck in the mine, you saw how the business case, the business model changed. How? Well, what happens, of course, is that if you look at different applications, you have various costs for that. For example, in mining, often when you drive or you're working 3 or 4 or 5 shifts, then you have to be able to run a number of these vehicles, particularly the longer distances.
Using a self driving vehicle will mean a lot, both in terms of productivity and cost, but also in terms of safety. So it's not only about looking at the individual vehicle and the opportunities with automation, but how do you operate within that environment. And we work in close collaboration with Boliden in that instance, but also with other customers. And we see the dumper here from Volvo Construction Equipment. And what's interesting about that one is that it's both electric and fully automated.
And we use a large part of our basic components and modular systems from the truck sector as well, which means that we have a huge advantage when it comes to scale, economies of scales and components because trucks, of course, are manufactured in greater volumes. So we're looking towards a bright future. So there will be more partnerships and we'll be talking about buses in a bit. That's an excellent example. But first, I'd like to mention something that one of your director said, Hakan Sommersson, who's the CEO of Volvo Cars normally, but is in your Board as well.
He said the following, speaking of the changing business models because that happens in his sector as well. He's no longer talking about selling cars. He's talking about selling mobility per kilometer or sometimes mobility per month. That's quite a different way of thinking. Yes.
And I believe that if we look at our business models today, there is more and more of the businesses about cost per ton kilometer or CO2 per ton kilometer these kind of models are passenger kilometer. That is what our customers want to buy, not least the customers of our customers. So they have a demand there for sustainable transport systems. So we see a huge demand in this and we will this will happen a lot more quickly in commercial vehicles compared to cars. Not that cars are worse at developing things, but it will take longer to develop those business models, I believe.
When it comes to connectivity, vehicle connectivity are already world leading, 600,000 connected vehicles. Yes. Yes. And for that reason, I would like to say Internet of Things and all that. Everyone is talking about that in the future.
That is happening here and now. And we use this connectivity to create value for our customers when it comes to accessibility, the use of insurance, to plan maintenance, it could be anything. Okay. So the service part where you also have an express ambition to grow. Yes.
When it comes to electrically powered vehicles, the buses will be electrified shortly. You're operating one route here in Gothenburg. And I know that in that setting to make that work there were 14 or 15 different stakeholders that needed to be involved. And I think you said at the last year's AGM, you can't come to the Chair of the Municipal Council and say, Here's an electric vehicle. There you go.
You have to involve all 14, 15 stakeholders to make it happen. Yes, well, you can't talk to one guy, but then you won't get any buses. But this is something that we talked a lot about. But I had the privilege of being one of the participants in Ban Ki Moon's report on sustainable transport. And we talked a lot about how do we change our way of thinking and think on a more systemic level.
And that's exactly the way of systemic thinking that we're talking about. It's not only about the opportunities provided by technology, but how do we apply different functions, not least in public transport and of course also in combination with all the other types of traffic. And so our ability to manage new business models, new earnings models and also show what kind of added value we can provide. So a lot of new partnerships and oh yes, a lot. It's a whole ecosystem that's being created.
You mentioned the Secretary General and the EU and Bank Limon. You gave him some recommendations last autumn about how to make the world's transport more sustainable. What did you say? Well, we said that we have to look at the entire life cycle cost, both in terms of the cost in actual dollars per tonne kilometer, but also in terms of environmental impact. That's a very important factor that you create the right type of financing, not least in the developing world where you see huge challenges around urbanization.
And also, how can we ensure that the available technology is used in a better way. That's also part of our responsibility, involving the different stakeholders. And how do you work in a more tangible manner with U. N. Sustainability goals?
Well, as many companies are talking about, for example, I mean, you can relate to everyone when you're 100,000 employees in 190 countries, of course. But there are 4 that we focus on specifically because we can make a huge difference there. And that's traffic safety. That's a very significant issue. Zenba cities, urbanization is moving forward.
We can make a huge difference there. We talked about infrastructure issues and climate impact in general because transport represent are faced with a huge challenge, but also a huge opportunity in that regard. To round off, Martin Karl Henrik mentioned Campus Lundby, where you now gather all the Volvo employees. I saw your new head office there a couple of weeks ago. Nice, isn't it?
Yes, very nice. And I can see that there's an open office landscape. Yes, that's interesting. Do you switch places every day? No, no, no, no, I don't.
I'm like my father around the kitchen table, he had his seat, and I have my But we sit there, and we have an excellent exchange. We have company management sitting there, the management team, and our most nearest functions are there as well. But we get closer to technology, to procurement, to all our head offices, as it were, for our different brands that are present in Gothenburg, Volvo Penta, Volvo buses, Volvo trucks and also from summer Volvo CE. So that feels great. So you can go down and have a look at the dumpers?
Yes, and hang out with people. That is the most enjoyable, yes. Lundby is about moving back to the roots of Volvo. What does it mean? Well, Lundby is very important to Lundby.
We started our operations there. We have some of our most important functions there in Lundby. And if we can collect all our resources around that site, it will mean a lot. It's an open environment, and we collaborate with Chalmers University among others and several other stakeholders in both academia and in society. And we have a very strong vehicle cluster in Gothenburg with Volvo Cars and then several other companies as well.
So there's a lot of strength in that. So the first car rolled out of the plant in Lundbeck, 1927, I think the first truck 1 year later. That means that you turn 100 10 years from now. Yes, next year. Oh, yes, no, 10 years.
Yes, sorry. Yes, yes. Now we're talking about 90, I'm sorry. Yes, 90, 90. You are the CEO of Volvo, right?
No, I'm excellent accounting. I'm an engineer. You can recruit me as a consultant if you need it. Say, 9,100, yes, 100 in 10 years. Let's take another breath here.
And I ask you, Volvo as a centenary, what's Volvo like then? Oh, Volvo, after 100 years, will continue to be a progressive company, world leading in mobility, and we will continue developing the opportunities that new technology provides us within our core areas, but also our business models. So we retain our leading position in Global Transport because we need to do that if we want to continue developing this planet. Huge thanks, Martin. I will give you the final say.
Thank you. Thank you, Mia. Tell you what, I couldn't resist like you said, you can't resist the opportunity to just say a few words myself as well, addressing you directly as shareholders. It is true when we look at things both internally and externally that we are facing several challenges, trends that are challenging to us as a company and the world as a whole, urbanization, climate threat, protectionism, a number of different things. But what is so incredibly strong for us as a company is that we know that mobility will be needed and the need will grow.
And we know for both goods and for people, it will need to be much more sustainable. That drives us. We can see a boost now as a company. We feel that we've got a tailwind both because of the market, but also because we work so closely together. When I started and I described that 18 months ago, it was like walking into a huge circular room looking for a corner.
That's how it feels. And the corners of this operation is, of course, all the people. So I've spent a lot of time together with my colleague traveling across the globe and meeting these people. And that has given me so much inspiration and energy and the impression that we are heading in the right direction and we will continue to do so. So I would just like to round off by thanking all my colleagues at Volvo everywhere around the globe, 95,000 of you who wake up every morning wanting to make a difference.
And that is such a strong feeling. And that is what drives me and the entire management team. So I would like to extend my thank you to you for that. And several of you are here today. I saw some faces here that I recognize.
I would also like to direct a heartfelt thank you to our union partners because that is so important in the negotiations we're going through. I'm looking at some of our representatives on the board here that we have a good collaboration, good partnership. Yes, different perspectives on the human capital that wants to stay because we're inclusive. And also, of course, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for believing in us, for investing in Volvo because that means a lot to us. And I promise you, we will give it all not to disappoint you.
Thank you for coming here today. Thank you.