Daimler Truck Holding says chip crunch easing

Daimler Truck Holding AG sees promising signs of moving past the prolonged chip shortage that has beset manufacturers globally, the head of the company's Mercedes truck brand said.

After months of factory outages due to the component shortfalls, the order backlog is keeping factories busy even as the global economy shows signs of sputtering, Karin Radstrom, who also leads the truckmaker's business in Europe and South America, said in an interview. The world's biggest truckmaker has so far also evaded disruption from coronavirus lockdowns in China, she said.

“It's better, it's not perfect, but it's better than last year,” Radstrom said in an interview. “I try to not celebrate too early, we're still monitoring the situation closely.”

Manufacturers like Daimler Truck -- which also counts the Freightliner, Western Star and Fuso brands -- and peer Volvo Group have had to curtail output as plants globally couldn't source enough of the hightech components even as demand for transport boomed. Radstrom's comments echo an assessment from Mercedes-Benz AG production chief Joerg Burzer this week who said the chip crunch was no longer causing serious production stoppages.