The maker of Thomas Built school buses and Starline freight trucks also reduced the book value of its Beijing Foton Daimler Automotive unit, triggering a one-time 120 million euro (USD 131 million) hit to earnings (adjusted EBIT).
Overall earnings of 1.17 billion euros for the second quarter missed expectations by 91 million euros, slightly less than the value of the writedown.
Analyst Fabio Hoelscher of Warburg Research said, however, that Daimler Truck making less money on each truck it sold at its Mercedes-Benz business, which sells in Europe and has Germany as its largest market, was the likely driver of the shares falling.
"What's negatively surprising now was the weak margin in Europe, 6.5% versus 8.7% consensus", he said.
"The China thing is clearly negative. But looking forward, because hopefully investors always try to price in the future, it shouldn't have much of an effect. The asset has been underperforming anyway", he added.
Europe and North America are Daimler Truck's most important markets by some distance.
Its Trucks North America business accounted for about half of Daimler Truck's earnings in 2023, with the European Mercedes-Benz business accounting for 40%.
Trucks Asia, which includes China, was just 4% of earnings last year.
Daimler Truck posts full results for the second quarter on August 1.
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.