Medium-Duty Sales Strong in January
Sales of medium-duty trucks had a strong start in 2019, climbing above 18,000 units in January, WardsAuto.com reported.
Sales rose 11.7% to 18,154 compared with 16,246 a year earlier, according to Ward’s.
“It’s nice to see the strength,” ACT Research Co. Vice President Steve Tam said.
Resilient consumer spending is leading companies to buy new trucks in this market, he said. “They certainly are delivering.”
As the year began, Cummins Inc. CEO Tom Linebarger forecast North American production of medium-duty trucks would reach 134,000 units, up 2% from a year earlier.
“Our market share is projected to be in the range of 74% to 76%,” Linebarger said during a recent conference call.
Class 7 sales in January climbed 17.7% to 5,390 compared with 4,578 a year earlier.
The truck makers with the most sales drove the year-over-year gain.
Freightliner led with 2,683, an increase of 350 from the 2018 period. Freightliner is a brand of Daimler Trucks North America.
International Truck, a brand of Navistar Inc., jumped 314 units to 1,344.
Ford Motor Co. nearly doubled its sales with 341, up from 173.
Class 6 sales jumped 21.8% to 6,721 compared with 5,518 units a year earlier.
International had the lion’s share of the gains as it nearly doubled sales — to 2,533 from 1,335 in the 2018 period.
International was not immediately available to comment
Sales in Classes 4-5 slipped 1.7% to 6,043 from 6,150 a year earlier.
Meanwhile, Dodge Ram announced its 2019 Ram Chassis Cab models will come in Classes 3-5 and will be available in the second quarter. They are built at the Satillo Truck Assembly Plant in Coahuila, Mexico. Dodge Ram is a unit of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V.
“Commercial trucks are important to the entire industry, but specifically for a truck brand like Ram it’s very important. They can represent as much as 25% to 30% of our sales. We’ve focused on capability with this new Chassis Cab. We looked at payload, gross vehicle weight and trailer-towing. Those things were all important to our customers,” said Dave Sowers, the head of Ram commercial vehicle marketing.
Upgrades and features include the new Cummins 6.7-liter I-6 diesel engine, active safety systems, cargo-view camera, Park Assist, and a trailer tire pressure monitoring system for up to six truck tires and 12 trailer tires with up to four trailer profiles.
