Companies in Gothenburg

Volvo was founded in 1927 in Gothenburg with a motto that still defines the company: 'cars are made by people for people'. Its most famous contribution to humanity came in 1959, when engineer Nils Bohlin invented the three-point seatbelt — and Volvo deliberately gave the patent away free to every automaker, a decision estimated to have saved over a million lives. Safety, not speed, became the brand. The Volvo Group (separate from the car maker, which Geely now owns) is one of the world's largest commercial vehicle makers: trucks (Volvo, Renault, Mack, and UD brands), buses, construction equipment, and marine and industrial engines. Its trucks lead the industry in safety systems and, increasingly, in electrification — Volvo's electric trucks and hydrogen fuel cell trucks are rolling out across Europe and North America. With about 88,000 employees and annual revenue near SEK 530 billion (US$50 billion), the Gothenburg-based group also owns the autonomous driving software company and a stake in the battery venture Northvolt. For freight operators, Volvo trucks are the premium choice — the machines that carry Europe's goods, engineered with the same safety obsession that gave the world the seatbelt.

SKF was born from a crisis: in 1905, Swedish engineer Sven Wingquist was wrestling with bearing failures at a textile mill when he designed a self-aligning ball bearing — one that could tolerate shaft misalignment. The patent made him a fortune and founded an industry: SKF (Svenska Kullagerfabriken, Swedish Ball Bearing Factory) became the world's largest bearing maker, and bearings — the 'revolving parts' that let machines move smoothly — became SKF's monopoly-adjacent specialty for a century. The company is the world's largest maker of bearings and seals, producing billions of components a year — from the tiny bearings inside hard drives and dental drills to the giant units in wind turbines and mining mills. Its product range covers ball bearings, roller bearings, and the seals, lubrication systems, and condition monitoring equipment that keep them running. SKF's technical service is legendary: its engineers pioneered vibration analysis to predict bearing failure before it happens. Headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, with about 40,000 employees and annual revenue near SEK 100 billion (US$9.5 billion), SKF has spent decades diversifying beyond bearings into the complete rotating-equipment ecosystem — seals, lubricants, and digital monitoring. For machinery builders and industrial maintainers, SKF remains the default spec: the bearing brand that engineers specify when they cannot afford failure.

Volvo Cars is a Swedish premium automotive manufacturer headquartered in Gothenburg, owned by China's Geely Holding since 2010. Founded in 1927, Volvo has built its reputation on safety innovation, from the three-point seatbelt, which it famously gave away as an open patent, to modern advanced driver assistance and autonomous driving technologies. The company sells vehicles in more than 100 countries with manufacturing plants in Sweden, Belgium, China, the United States and Malaysia, and is undergoing one of the most ambitious transformations in the industry: becoming a fully electric car company. Its Recharge line of plug-in hybrids and fully electric models, including the EX90 flagship SUV, is built on a scalable EV architecture with advanced software and connectivity. For B2B buyers, Volvo Cars is a significant purchaser of automotive components, battery cells, electronics and materials, and a potential partner for fleet and corporate sales. Its premium positioning, safety leadership and global supply chain make it a key customer and partner in the automotive industry.