Marcopolo is a Brazilian manufacturer of Highway Coaches, Transit Buses, School Buses and Bus Frames for other Chassis. It dominates the South American market and has subsidiaries in emerging markets all over the world.

Marcopolo builds nearly half of all bus bodies in Brazil and most buses in South America. Bus Travel in South America is extremely common and has much higher ridership than Air Travel at a similar cost. The demand for long distance highway coaches is very high but most private companies cannot afford to buy expensive American, Canadian or German models. Marcopolo builds luxury long distance highway coaches at a much lower cost. Marcopolo builds all of its buses for "emerging markets" where it sees most of it success

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Marcopolo's business strategy has been extremely successful because of its innovation at cost reduction. Marcopolo has varies agreements and alliances with other manufacturers with similar interests such as Tata Motors of India. Marcopolo at one point had a 20% stake in New Flyer of Canada.

Marcopolo builds bus bodies and frames for mounting onto separate chassis. This method is often cheaper and is the main reason why their products have a lower cost. The Marcopolo Paradiso 1800 is mounted on a Volvo Chassis while the Paradiso 1200 is mounted on chassis from Mercedes-Benz or Scania.

Although it has abandoned hopes of North American Market Share, Marcopolo did try in the late 90's to sell its buses in North America and Europe. It enlisted the help of Mexican Bus and Truck Manufacturer DINA and Motor Coach Industries to sell in the U.S. and Volvo with assistance in Europe.

With the help of DINA, Marcopolo was able to make the Viaggio compliant with US DOT regulations and with assistance from MCI was able to set up a distribution network. The Viaggio remains the only DOT legal model built by Marcopolo for use in the U.S. Few can still be seen in use by smaller bus companies. Newer Marcopolo Paradiso models are not DOT compliant but are allowed for temporary visits because they are frequently used by Mexican touring companies.