Trailer Market Slips From Record Pace

Shipments of trailers and chassis continue to drop off their pace of 1998, when they broke the previous record set three years earlier.

April figures slipped 2.3% from the previous month, according to a preliminary count from the U.S. Bureau of Census. Complete trailers and chassis totaled 23,361 for April vs. 23,905 for March, indicating the downward trend that started off the year has not let up.

Shipments for the first four months of 1999 total 93,389, which is 13.3% below the 107,718 reported for the same period in 1998. The value of trailers shipped from January to April was put at $18 billion.

Van trailers — the type shipped in greatest numbers — were down 2.9% from March. The number of vans shipped during the four months of this year was 74,413, down 15.3% from the 87,861 shipped during the same period in 1998.

Shipment figures for all other categories of trailers dropped from March levels, except for low-bed, heavy-haulers, which were up 1.1%; dump trailers, up 8.7%; and the category designated “all other,” up 1.1%.

Shipments of containers and container chassis stood at 1,978, down 1.1% in April. However, the first four months of 1999 saw 7,280 containers and chassis shipped, representing an 11.5% increase from the 1998 figure.

“The drop-off from the record pace of 1998 had been expected,” said Richard Bowling, president of the Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association.

Bowling expressed confidence in the general health of the industry.