Trailer Registrations Rise 42% Over Weak 2009, Report Finds

This story appears in the Feb. 28 print edition of Transport Topics.

The number of new commercial trailers registered in the United States in 2010 reached 105,471, a 42% increase from the previous dismal year, R.L. Polk & Co. reported.

“2010 was a great increase over ’09, but 2009 was the worst year for trailer registrations that we have seen,” said Gary Meteer Sr., Polk’s account director in charge of the report. “It just couldn’t have been worse.”

In 2009, 74,363 new trailers were registered, Polk said. Dave Gilliland, vice president of branch sales and operations for Great Dane Trailers, said new commercial trailer sales historically have run between 200,000 and 300,000 annually.

Polk’s Feb. 16 report said dry and refrigerated vans enjoyed the largest gains last year, with 74,258 total units registered, a 67.9% increase from the previous year. Dry vans and reefers made up 70.3% of all those registered last year.

“Despite the relatively low total, 2010 was a heck of a nice turnaround, and almost certainly points to a much stronger 2011,” Meteer said.

“We began increasing production in the latter half of 2010, and we’ve been receiving even more significant orders in 2011,” Gilliland said. “We reopened a dry van plant that we had shut down during the recession in Jonesboro, Ark., and increased hiring and production across the board at all eight of our plants.”

Gilliland said most industry experts projected 2011 new trailer production at more than 150,000 units, with the more optimistic saying the total could reach 190,000.

He added that Great Dane was also constructing its first trailer manufacturing plant in the United States in many years. He said the plant in Statesboro, Ga., was scheduled to open in early 2012 and could produce up to 5,000 refrigerated trailers a year.

My phone is “ringing constantly from customers wanting to buy trailers, new or used,” Bill Tirrill, vice president of national accounts for Fleetco Inc., a trailer dealership with 10 locations based in Nashville, Tenn., told Transport Topics. “Business has changed dramatically for the better since the middle of 2010.”

He said Fleetco was stockpiling its first new trailers since the recession because the company was confident it could sell them.

“We have orders we can’t fill, new and used,” he said. “New trailers have a four-month backlog now.”

Tirrill added that the supply of used trailers “was extremely tight.”

“When that dries up, everyone is going to have to turn to new ones, and that will make sales surge even more. . . . This is a good time for all of us.”

Robert Wahlin, who took over Jan. 31 as president of Stoughton Trailers, said the company was seeing “a similar trend as the rest of the industry.”

“We have been adding people as steadily as we could adequately train and accustom them to our procedures,” Wahlin told TT. “We are building a small foundation of second shifts so that we’re ready to add additional shifts when needed.”

As every other trailer manufacturer who talked to TT, Wahlin said that the company has raised prices this year.

“As we went into 2011, material costs for our parts have risen because of commodity prices, and we have had to adjust our prices accordingly,” Wahlin said.

Tirrill of Fleetco, which sells all major brands, said that price increases ranged from 2% to 4% this year.

“We’ve increasing production, and hiring and training people as fast as we can,” said Craig Bennett, senior vice president, sales and marketing of Utility Trailer Manufacturing Co., City of Industry, Calif. “We’re projecting that our trailer production will be up 35% to 40% overall this year, above last year’s solid rise.”

Bennett said that Utility already had orders that would keep its factories operating “through June and into July.”

“For the most part, customers are still replacing their trailers, which had gotten very old, rather than increasing the size of their trailer fleets, though a few in fact have been doing that,” Bennett added.

New grain trailers were second in registrations last year with 6,912 units, a 12.6% increase that gave grain haulers 6.6% of all trailer registrations last year, according to Polk.

Flatbeds were next, with 3,939, a 19.9% increase over 2009 for 3.7% of the registrations last year.

“Flatbeds are still weak because housing and construction are still weak, but we did see the first increases in demand for flatbeds since the recession,” Utility’s Bennett said. Utility was the top seller in flatbeds last year.

Wabash National Corp., Lafayette, Ind., the market leader in 2010 van registrations, declined comment.