Shares in Swedish truck maker Scania rose Wednesday after the company reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter net profit and said it now sees signs of stability.

Scania beat analysts' expectations with its fourth quarter results on Wednesday, but stayed vague on its outlook for this year after 2009 proved disastrous for the industry.

The Scania share was up almost 10 percent in Stockholm.

The company, whose main shareholder is Germany's Volkswagen, reported net profits of 822 million kronor (87.4 million euros, 121.9 million dollars) for the fourth quarter of 2009, a 45 percent drop on a year-to-year basis.

Its sales for the same period amounted to 18.36 billion kronor, down from 22.66 billion kronor for the fourth quarter of 2008.

Those numbers were however better than the net profits and sales expected by analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires, and sent shares up 9.35 percent to 101.7 kronor on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, down 0.31 percent at 1520 GMT.

Scania also said its truck orders surged in the fourth quarter to approximately 13,900 units compared to 2,400 on a 12-month comparison, but aded that orders had fallen 24 percent over the whole of 2009.

"In Scania’s judgement, the downturn in European truck demand has now leveled off. In Latin America, demand remains relatively good, especially in Brazil," the company said in a statement.

The Swedish truck maker's biggest markets are Western Europe and Brazil.

The truckmaking sector, dominated by Sweden's Volvo and and Germany's Daimler and MAN, is very sensitive to economic activity and was badly hit by the global economic crisis.