Defence as a growth driver
Daimler Truck establishes umbrella brand for military business
Daimler Truck is expanding its business with military vehicles and other armaments goods with the establishment of a new umbrella brand and hopes for new billion-euro revenues. Among others, the Wörth am Rhein site will benefit in terms of personnel.
Daimler Truck is pressing ahead with its activities in the defence sector. The Group is bundling its worldwide activities under the new umbrella brand “Daimler Truck Defence” and is consistently aligning its business towards global growth, as the company from Leinfelden-Echterdingen near Stuttgart announced.
Daimler Truck sees business with the defence sector as a clear growth driver for the coming years, according to the statement. The aim is to achieve revenue of one billion euros here by 2028. For comparison: in 2025 the Group’s total revenue was 49.5 billion euros.
Last year, revenue in the defence sector amounted to a mid-three-digit million figure, said Daimler Truck Defence chief Dennis Kinzelmann to the German Press Agency. Of sales, military vehicles currently account for a low single-digit percentage. So the very large majority of the vehicles sold are classic lorries and buses.
Team at the Wörth site is to grow
As part of the strategic expansion, Daimler Truck will over the course of the next few years also expand its development, production, sales and service capacities. In total, around 1,000 people are currently active in this area, according to the statement. The growth strategy will be shaped significantly at the Rhineland-Palatinate site in Wörth am Rhein, not far from Karlsruhe, and will lead to a corresponding need for qualified specialists. The team in Wörth will be expanded by more than 100 new employees, said Kinzelmann.
In future, the portfolio is not only to include vehicles from Mercedes-Benz Trucks. In addition to the Mercedes-Benz brand, the Dax group also has brands such as, Western Star in North America or BharatBenz in India.
Technologically, Daimler Truck Defence draws from the modular system of the group's civilian model series and also cooperates with partner companies. "In view of the increased demand, we had and have a very good starting position," said Kinzelmann. "We are drawing on products that have already proven themselves." Model series such as Unimog or Arocs have thus been used for non-military applications for many years.
Commercial vehicle manufacturer under pressure
The commercial vehicle manufacturer's profit had collapsed by 34 percent last year compared with the previous year to two billion euros. US tariffs and weak demand in North America had placed a heavy burden on the business. Revenue and sales had also declined. In the first quarter of this year, profit had even collapsed by 80 percent. In order to become more competitive, Daimler Truck had already launched the cost-cutting programme "Cost Down Europe" last year.
