Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) is one of the world’s leading companies in the construction machinery industry with production facilities in Europe, Asia, North America and South America and distribution of products, spare parts and services in more than 190 countries. It has historically held strong positions in Western Europe and North America and has more recently extended its presence considerably in Asia, as well as in South America and Eastern Europe.

In the period from the mid-1990s to the mid-2010s Volvo changed from a niche market supplier, concentrating on its wheeled loader and articulated dump truck product lines, largely within the confines of the European market, into a full liner with a truly global presence. The most recent examples of the acquisitive strategy that lead to this globalisation have been the taking control of a major Chinese wheeled loader manufacturer, Shandong Lingong, in 2007, the acquisition of the road construction part of the Ingersoll-Rand business, also in 2007, and the purchase of Terex Trucks in 2014. As a result, Volvo is now a major supplier of articulated dump trucks, hydraulic excavators, mini excavators and wheeled loaders, backed up by road machinery. Through the SDLG brand, created after the Shandong Lingong purchase, it now also produces backhoe loaders and motor graders, while the Terex Trucks purchase has introduced a second range of articulated dump trucks, now branded Rokbak, as well as rigid dump trucks under the Volvo brand.

Volvo Construction Equipment is the second largest business area in the Swedish Volvo Group, smaller than the combined trucks divisions but bigger than both the buses segment and also Volvo Penta, the group’s engine production arm; it accounted for 25 per cent of group revenue in 2021. Its global status is underlined by having joined the select band of Western manufacturers that has both started construction equipment production in China and acquired a local manufacturer. It has moved into manufacturing in India by way of the Ingersoll-Rand road machinery purchase and also produces machines in Brazil and North America.