KION Group AG has flagged its ambitions to grow its US market, where sales in the first three quarters of 2013 rose more than 10%.

Despite a weaker western European industrial truck market, KION claims to have increased its profitability to a new record level in the first nine months of this year.

The group boosted revenue by 0.3% to about EUR3.317 billion (USD4.499 billion) for the first nine months of 2013, while operating profit increased by 3.1% to a "record level" of EUR300.9 million (USD408 million).

"Our success in the first nine months of 2013 is impressive evidence of our strong position in the emerging markets," says group CEO Gordon Riske. "This shows that the KION Group's strategy of expansion is building on the right foundation. We are now setting our sights on additional markets such as the USA, where we have thus far been underrepresented. At the same time, we are continuing to expand our global service and sales networks."

According to KION's market intelligence, the world market expanded by 5% in the first nine months of 2013 to 753,900 trucks, compared to the same period last year.

The driving force behind growth, in addition to the US market, has been the group's key growth markets in China, Eastern Europe and Brazil.

In Western Europe, however, the slightly negative trend continued in the third quarter, with demand for the nine-month period dropping by 2.8% to around 190,400 units.

This contrasted with a rise in demand in Asia (not including Japan) to about 248,900 vehicles (up 9.2%). Unit sales in the Eastern European market rose by 5.9% to 43,400 vehicles, while the number of vehicles sold in the Latin American market increased by 10.2% to 39,300 vehicles. In North America, around 147,000 vehicles were sold, an increase of 11.2%.