Stockholm  - Falling vehicle deliveries severely hurt Swedish heavy-vehicle maker Scania, with the company reporting a more than 80 per cent drop in pre-tax third-quarter earnings, to 383 million kronor (56 million dollars).

The pre-tax earnings compares with a pre-tax profit of 2.5 billion kronor in the same quarter of 2008. This year's third-quarter net profit was 278 million kronor.

"Vehicle deliveries decreased by nearly 50 per cent and were the main explanation for the earnings downturn," Chief Executive Leif Ostling commented.

Turnover in the quarter dipped 34 per cent to 13.4 billion kronor.

Although there was low activitity in the European truck market, Scania's assessment is that "the downturn in western European demand has now levelled off," Ostling said.

Demand in Latin America was relatively good, and there was some recovery in Asia, the Scania chief executive added.

Scania has since June operated a four-day week for about 12,000 employees in Sweden estimated to give savings of some 300 million kronor for 2009.

The group had some 32,000 employees at the end of the quarter, a decrease of some 4,100 workers year-on-year.

Scania truck deliveries for the period January-September fell 50 per cent year-on-year to 25,179 units, while order bookings shrank 52 per cent to 20,696 trucks. For western Europe, order bookings dropped 53 per cent.

Compared to second-quarter 2009, total order bookings were up 9 per cent in the third quarter.

Scania estimated it had about 13.2 per cent of the truck market in Europe, slightly up year-on-year.

Bookings for buses fell 21 per cent to 4,222 units during the nine-month period and the group delivered 4,511 units, down 14 per cent year-on-year.(dpa)