For the three months ending 31 March, the company revealed that it had seen an increase in its net sales of 13.9% year-on-year. However, it added that had this been adjusted to reflect acquired and divested units during this quarter, as well as currency movements, sales have only increased by around 1% year-on-year.

According to IHS Automotive, while Persson is to be congratulated on his achievements during his four years in charge of Volvo Group, the company’s failure keep on track with its target to reduce costs and improve profitability has resulted in his replacement.

While the announcement of Lundstedt is something of a surprise to some, IHS claims there is a great deal of rationale for doing so. He has risen swiftly during his career to end up leading Scania, which is renowned for its profit margins.

Acting president and CEO, Jan Guarander, has said in a statement that: "2015 is the year in which we will see the combined effects of the product launches carried out in 2013 and the cost reductions that were implemented in 2014. Even if we still have many activities to implement also in 2015, the earnings improvement we saw in this quarter shows that we have taken another step in improving the profitability of the Group."

According to IHS, while demand for Volvo appears to be buoyant in Europe (+21.8% y/y) helped by the low base of comparison a year ago, North American sales continue to grow (+17.9% y/y), it struggles in other markets, including South America where orders have fallen by almost two-thirds on slowing economic growth and falling business confidence while in other markets, orders have fallen 34% y/y as Asia remained flat.