The Volvo Group is a Swedish multinational manufacturing company headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distribution and sale of trucks, buses and construction equipment, Volvo also supplies marine and industrial drive systems and financial services. In 2016, it was the world’s second largest manufacturer of heavy-duty trucks.
Although often conflated with the luxury vehicle manufacturer Volvo Cars, also based in Gothenburg, the two firms have been independent since AB Volvo sold Volvo Cars to Ford Motor Company in 1999. Volvo Cars has been owned since 2010 by the Geely Holding Group, a Chinese multinational automotive manufacturing company. Both AB Volvo and Volvo Cars share the Volvo logo and cooperate in running the Volvo Museum.
The company first listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 1935 and it was also listed on other NASDAQ indices from 1985 to June 2007.
Volvo was established in 1915 as a subsidiary of SKF, the ball bearing manufacturer; however the Volvo Group and Volvo Cars consider themselves to have been officially founded on 14 April 1927, when the first car, the Volvo ÖV 4 series, nicknamed as "Jakob", rolled out of the factory in Hisingen, Gothenburg.