July Class 8 Sales Rise 27.8%
This story appears in the Aug. 16 print edition of Transport Topics.
Heavy-duty U.S. retail truck sales continued their steady climb last month, increasing 27.8% compared with July 2009, according to the most recent survey from WardsAuto.com.
For all of 2010, Class 8 sales are now 15.5% higher than they were in the first seven months of last year.
Original equipment manufacturers sold 9,589 Class 8 trucks in July — the most of any month so far this year. The cumulative volume reached 58,846. The comparable year-ago figures are 7,503 units and 50,960.
The seven major brands split almost evenly for the month between growth and contraction, with Volvo Trucks North America more than doubling its sales, Ward’s said Aug. 11.
Heavy truck sales have grown each month this year, on a year-over-year basis, after contracting during all months of 2009. July was the second-best month for Class 8 volumes since the start of 2009, surpassed only by 11,537 in December.
“Small-to-medium-size truckload carriers are back in business, and the new engine technology is proving itself,” said Ronald Remp, a Volvo dealer in Wheeling, W.Va., and the brand’s line representative within the American Truck Dealers trade group.
VTNA monthly sales rose 122.6% for the month to 977 units from 439 the previous July. Remp said there were no jumbo deliveries to a large fleet during the month but rather decent sales to medium-size companies nationwide.
“It’s coast-to-coast and north-to-south but no major conquests,” Remp said of recent order and sales improvements after he talked with fellow Volvo dealers during a conference call. He also credited the acceptance of Volvo’s selective catalytic reduction engine technology, new for this year to meet the 2010 federal regulatory change in emissions standards.
Seven-month sales for VTNA are up 23.7%, year-over-year, to 4,861 units.
Volvo usually has been in fifth or sixth place this year in monthly sales, but the July volume raised the Greensboro, N.C., OEM into third place for the month.
Freightliner Trucks and Navistar Inc. kept the top two slots, with Freightliner selling 3,103 big trucks for the month, up 83.8% from the 1,688 it sold the previous July. Cumulative sales rose 40.6% to 18,890 vehicles.
Martin Daum, CEO of Daimler Trucks North America, Freightliner’s parent company, said a sales boom is coming, but the timing remains uncertain (8-9, p. 3).
Navistar sold 2,954 Class 8s, a 36.9% increase from the 2,158 moved in the same month last year. Seven-month sales rose 14.5% to 17,171 units.
“We’re a little ahead of where we thought we’d be,” spokesman Roy Wiley said of Navistar’s 29.2% market share for seven months, a small increase over its 28% share for 2009. Freightliner’s share for 2009 was 27.3%, and it is up to 32.1% for this year through July.
Wiley also said that, while 2010 tallies are better than for 2009, this year still does not compare well against recent historical standards, when monthly sales volumes of 15,000 and more, industrywide, were common.
Executives at two market research firms said they expect sales and production to accelerate into next year.
“Trucker profitability rebounded sharply in the second quarter, fueled by tightening capacity and rising freight rates, John Burton vice president of ACT Research Co., said in an Aug. 11 statement from ACT. “Even with modest economic growth, commercial vehicle demand should continue to rise as carriers appear to be replacing an aging fleet but not adding capacity.”
CK Commercial Vehicle Research said Aug. 2 that its Fleet Sentiment Equipment Buying Index jumped to its best reading in two years during the current quarter. CKCVR said 45.1% of the executives it surveyed said they planned to order heavy- and medium-duty power units over the next three months.
The two OEMs of Paccar Inc., Kenworth Trucks and Peterbilt Motors, reported a contraction in U.S. monthly sales, but Kenworth General Manager Bill Kozek said the U.S. truck market, while the continent’s largest, is growing more slowly than those of either Canada or Mexico.
“We are way up in Canada,” Kozek said in a telephone interview, “and Mexico is smoking.”
Western Canada truck sales, anchored by oil-field services customers, are particularly strong, Kozek said, adding that Mexican manufacturing is benefiting from the return of the U.S. automotive market, and that improvement has led to a doubling of sales in Mexico, year-over-year.
In the United States, though, Kenworth fell 17.5% for the month to 856 units from 1,038 the previous July. Seven-month retail sales dipped 1.2% to 5,759.
Peterbilt had a 14.5% fall to 882 units from 1,032 in July 2009. Year-to-date sales are up 6.9% to 6,590 units.
Mack Trucks, sister company to Volvo, also experienced a monthly decline, of 6.3% to 701 units from 748. However, cumulative sales are up 17% to 4,521 vehicles.
Sales at DTNA’s small subsidiary, Western Star, shot up 82% for the month to 111 units from 61.
