I'm Swedish, my wife is from Belgium and introduced me to Eric Carle when she bought several of his books for our children. Before that I had never read any of his books and only recognised the title of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Looking a bit I can't find any of his books in Swedish and neither he nor the caterpillar seem to have a Swedish wiki page.
Anecdotally I'd say well over half the people I know here in Sweden with kids of the relevant age own a copy. I also definitely read it as a kid, had it read to me in kindergarten, and even remember it as an 'animated' TV show (basically panning shots over the illustrations as a narrator read the story).
It's fascinating how culture can be so segmented within such a small population. When we got the books for our kids I read them and loved them. I told my mother about them and she didn't recognize them at all.
How old are you? I was born in 1987 so I grew up in the nineties.
Looking a bit I can't find any of his books in Swedish and neither he nor the caterpillar seem to have a Swedish wiki page.