Class 8 Orders Fall to the Lowest Point Since 2012
North American orders for Class 8 trucks in June fell to the lowest point since July 2012, ACT Research Co. reported.
The 13,100 total — a preliminary tally, which will be revised later this month — was down 35% compared with 20,287 a year earlier, according to ACT.
“Class 8 vehicle orders continued to lose traction in June,” ACT President Kenny Vieth said in a statement.
Last month, Volvo Trucks North America, a unit of the Volvo Group, announced production cuts at its Dublin, Virginia, plant in “the early August timeframe,” given the continued decline in Class 8 orders.
Daimler Trucks North America, a unit of Daimler AG, also said in June that it plans to cut 1,240 jobs across most of its North American production facilities starting in late June as it anticipates a 15% decrease in Classes 6-8 retail sales from 425,000 units in 2015.
Together, the two truck manufacturers control about 60% of the market.
At the same time, June orders also fell 8% from the May total of 14,224.
The sequential decline was “in line with our expectation that orders would be down slightly ... due in large part to seasonality,” Michael Baudendistel, an analyst with Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., wrote in a note to investors.
Conditions in the Class 8 market have been slower to improve than he expected at the beginning of the year, David Leiker, an analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co., wrote in an investor note. The volume reflects “continued pressures in the freight market, confirmed by several recent negative pre-announcements [of earnings] and elevated production rates, which have made inventory destocking difficult,” he added.
