Truckers in Shopping Mood

Trucking companies indulged in some Christmas shopping, maintaining the high sales numbers for heavy-duty trucks through the month of November.

Class 8 truck makers certainly should have the holiday spirit. They sold 18,117 units in the U.S. retail market last month, a 32.5% increase over the 13,675 units they moved last year in November, according to data supplied by Ward’s Communications.

So far this year, Class 8 truck sales have totaled 188,915, up 13.2% from the 159,803 trucks sold last year by this time.

As for what will happen after all the New Year’s parties are over and 1999 gets under way, Douglas L. Col, an industry analyst with Morgan Keegan, Memphis, Tenn., says trucking companies will be cautious, but he expects the good times to continue.

“I think the environment for truck sales is going to be pretty good next year,” said Mr. Col. “Most of the carriers are pretty bullish, not only with the fourth-quarter freight trends but actually with the outlook for the first half of next year — we find everybody seems pretty positive.”

Mr. Col said that many truck companies he’s talking to are taking a wait-and-see attitude about the freight market, but he doesn’t expect that to affect truck sales. “I don’t think people are holding off.

he large companies are too big to wait until the last second to decide what they want to do in terms of growing their fleet,” he said.

The real engine behind the strong truck sales numbers hasn’t been the big fleets anyway, said Mr. Col: “Sales to owner-operators and small companies of less than 10 trucks have been strong because they have made some money this year, and they’re upgrading their fleets.”

Freightliner Corp. led the Class 8 market in November, selling 6,124 trucks, up 59.4% from 3,842 last year.

Navistar International Transportation Co. placed second: It moved 2,774 Class 8s, 10% more than the 2,521 it sold last November.

Mack Trucks, Kenworth Truck Co., and Volvo Trucks North America rounded out the top five in the sales race. Mack sold 2,345 Class 8s, up 32.3%; Volvo, 2,103, up 37.3%; and Kenworth 1,914, up 56.6%.

Peterbilt Motor Corp.’s sales increased 8.4%, from 1,696 to 1,914.

Sterling Truck Corp., the Freightliner subsidiary that started selling its own line this year, continued to lose ground, selling 700 units, 327 less than last month.

Western Star sold 265 trucks, 23.3% more than it did last November. Other manufacturers’ sales increased 15.2% from 33 to 38.

Only 16 of the dwindling supply of Ford-badged trucks were sold.

In the competition for year-to-date market share, Freightliner stayed on top. The Portland, Ore.-based manufacturer garnered 30.8% compared with the 28.2% it held after the first 11 months of 1997.

Navistar held on to its second-place position but suffered a decrease in its market share from 19.3% to 18.7%.

Mack’s market share held firm at 12.2%. Volvo saw its market share jump from 9.6% last year to 11.8%, Kenworth’s went up to 10.5% from 10.2% and Peterbilt sustained a decrease from 11.4% to 10.2% of the Class 8 market.

For the full story, see the Dec. 21 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.