Volvo

AB Volvo (or Aktiebolaget Volvo) is a world-leading Swedish manufacturer of commercial vehicles, trucks, buses and construction equipment, drive systems for marine and industrial applications, aerospace components and financial services. more...

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The automaker was founded August 10, 1926 in the city of Gothenburg, as a spin-off from roller ball bearing maker SKF (Svenska Kullagerfabriken AB). Volvo Cars, the automobile manufacturer, has been owned by the Ford Motor Company since 1999.

Volvo is Latin for "I roll" or "I turn." The name Volvo was originally registered in May 1911 as a separate company within SKF AB and as a registered trademark with the intention to be used for a special series of ball bearing, but this idea was only used for a short period of time and SKF decided to use "SKF" as the trademark for all its bearing products. The company Volvo AB had no activities until the 10 August 1926 when the SKF Sales Manager Assar Gabrielsson and Engineer Gustav Larson, after one year of preparations involving the production of 10 prototypes, set up the car-manufacturing business Volvo AB within SKF group. Volvo AB was introduced at the Stockholm stock exchange in 1935 and SKF then decided to sell its shares in the company.

The first series produced Volvo automobile, called 'ÖV4' (Öppen vagn (Open wagon)-4 cylinders) left the factory on 14 April 1927. Just 996 cars were produced between 1927-1929. 'ÖV4' was replaced by model PV651 in April 1929. Volvo's first success in the automobile production came with the PV444 that was introduced in september 1944.

The Volvo Group today has more than 81,000 employees, with manufacturing in 25 countries and sales in more than 185 markets. The group provides complete solutions for financing and service. The Volvo Group's net sales 2004 amounted to €22 billion. Renault owns 20% of the Volvo Group.

Change of strategy

Among the reasons why Volvo took the initiative to sell the automobile manufacturing was the increasing development costs for new car models, coupled with the fact that it was a relatively small producer. The strategy was instead to grow as a truck manufacturer where it had a stronger market position. The buyout of Volvo Cars was announced on January 28, 1998. In the following year acquisition was completed at a price of $6.45 billion USD. Volvo used the funds from the sale of the automobile division to finance the purchase of Scania, another leading Swedish truck manufacturer, but the deal was stopped for competition reasons by the European Union. Instead Volvo acquired the commercial vehicles division of French Renault and the American truck manufacturer Mack Trucks.

Volvo Automotive's motto is "Volvo for life" attributed to the reliability and safety of their cars.

Volvo means "I roll" in Latin. Combined with their company symbol, (it could represent either the male symbol, the symbol of Mars or the metal related to the planet Mars, iron; in fact, the same symbol) which actually refers to iron ore, stands for "Rolling Strength"

Read more at Wikipedia.org