MUNICH (dpa-AFX) - VW's truck and bus holding company Traton took fewer orders on its books last year than a year earlier. Overall, orders for trucks and buses fell by seven percent to 334,600 vehicles, the company announced in Munich on Friday. This was mainly due to a ten percent drop in truck orders to 274,300 units, while bus orders rose by a substantial 45 percent to 32,300 units.

The orders were roughly equivalent to a full year's production, it said. The company has been choosy about accepting orders because of difficult-to-estimate developments in energy prices and supplier parts, it said. "We will work hard in 2023 to work off our full order books," Traton CEO Christian Levin said.

As previously announced, Traton had posted record sales of 305,500 vehicles in 2022, up about 12 percent from a year earlier, in part because of the first full-year inclusion of the acquisition of U.S. manufacturer Navistar. The truck business grew by ten percent to 254,300 vehicles, while Traton sold 29,600 buses, more than half the total. Without the consolidation effect of Navistar, sales would have fallen by seven percent./men/jha/