April Medium-Duty Sales Continue Year-Over-Year Gains

Sales Increase 7.7% Year-Over-Year to 20,564 From 19,098; Sequential Rise From March Is 3%

A Freightliner eM2. Frieghtliner, a brand of Daimler Truck North America, sold the most Class 7 trucks in April at 2,255 as well as the most Class 6 trucks at 2,026. (Daimler Truck North America)

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U.S. retail sales for medium-duty trucks hit their sixth consecutive month of year-over-year gains in April, according to data from Wards Intelligence.

Classes 4-7 total retail truck sales increased 7.7% year-over-year to 20,564 from 19,098 in April 2023. They also were up 3% sequentially from 19,961 units in March. The sales figures for medium-duty trucks have had positive year-over-year gains since November.

“The most interesting thing to me was to finally see Class 6 and 7 getting some love,” ACT Research Vice President Steve Tam said. “Classes 4 and 5 have been, longer term as well as on a cumulative basis, they’ve been doing pretty well. So to see them actually taking a breather in April, I guess to me, isn’t too surprising. And, conversely, I’m sure that the lease rental folks are happy to finally be getting some more equipment than they have been historically. That’s been kind of a mixed bag.”

The data showed that three of the four medium-duty classes saw a year-over-year gain. Class 7 sales increased 18.9% to 4,643 units from 3,905. Class 6 declined to 6,196 units from 6,840. Classes 4-5 increased 16.4% to 9,725 from 8,353.

Tam

“We still have this logjam at the upfitter process of the delivery cycle,” Tam said. “Every time I talk with somebody, I get the same story. It’s, ‘Yeah, we’ve got the trucks, they’re working their way to us, but we just can’t get our hands on them.’ ”

Freightliner, a brand of Daimler Truck North America, sold the most Class 7 trucks in April at 2,255 units as well as the most Class 6 trucks at 2,026. Ford sold the most in Class 5 at 3,932 units. Isuzu sold the most Class 4 units at 983.

“It’s interesting — there’s also been some conversations about trucks showing up at the customer unexpectedly,” Tam said. “So some problems with the communication process, I guess, more than anything. But things are in a little bit of disarray in the medium-duty space. We just haven’t quite figured out how to get that all sorted out.”