October Medium-Duty Sales Increase 5.5% From 2023
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U.S. retail sales of medium-duty trucks increased sequentially and compared to the prior year in October, according to data from Wards Intelligence.
Classes 4-7 total retail truck sales for the month increased 5.5% to 20,484 units from 19,419 a year ago. Sales also increased 11.8% sequentially from the 18,316 reported in September. The first half of the year was strong on a year-over-year basis. But those positive comparisons had — for the most part — slowed in the second half to the point that they had turned into year-over-year losses. October represented the first year-over-year increase since July.
“We are seeing some lumpiness in that Class 4 space,” ACT Research Vice President Steve Tam said. “They’ve got a lot of inventory out there. I just don’t know why there aren’t more customers. We hear, particularly more so on the heavier side of medium, that stuff is stuck at the body builders and trying to work its way through that process.”
Tam noted that he hasn’t typically seen a lot of upfitting in Class 4. But he speculated that it could be due to brands like Isuzu trucks that need to be outfitted to become pickups. Isuzu did indeed sell the most trucks in the Class 4 category at 885 units in October.
Tam
“Maybe that’s what the issue is because they are a big player in that space,” Tam said. “So maybe their stuff just has a disproportionate impact in the number of Class 4. The other 5 through 7, the numbers there seem to be pretty much business as usual. The story that we’ve seen so far this year seems to be pretty consistent.”
Class 7 sales increased 55.5% to 6,036 units from 3,882. Class 6 sales declined 3.9% to 5,780 units from 6,016. Classes 4 and 5 fell 9% to 8,668 units from 9,521. Freightliner, a brand of Daimler Truck North America, sold the most Class 7 trucks during the month at 2,376 units and the most Class 6 trucks at 1,855. Ford sold the most in Class 5 at 3,760 units.
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