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Commercial vehicle buyers refuse to buckle

TIC numbers improve month on month and for the year to June compared with June last year

July 4, 2013

Commercial vehicle owners are proving resilient in the face of economic pessimism, if truck sales statistics for June are anything to go by.

Sales are continuing to improve month on month and the Truck Industry Council (TIC) figures are also up for the year to
June compared with June last year.

Overall sales for the month including vans totalled 3,145 units, compared with 2,769 in May and 3,009 in June last year.

Total sales for the calendar year so far
are also up, at 15,074, compared with last year’s 14,342.

Perhaps the biggest smiles might be seen at Fuso, which has nearly doubled its June performance of last year to 400 units from 248 and was up about 10 percent month on month.

Its improvement on June last year was due predominantly to a hefty jump in its light-duty offering, nearly 100 units up at 223.

Another marque shifting higher volumes at both ends of the duty spectrum is Iveco, which rose four places in the heavy-duty leader board compared with May to nail 107 prime movers from 83 in May.

It also kicked goals in the light duty segment, rising from 49 to 88.

Beyond the headline figures, however, individual manufacturer’s figures are uneven.

In the heavy-duty segment, it was a forgettable month for Mercedes, which saw sales drop from 65 to 32 and Mack, 85 to 70. Mercedes might see that as an anomaly, however, given its year-to-date figure of 183 units is way up on last year’s 132.

DAF may be feeling chipper, seeing its heavy offering up from 23 to 41 month on month and from 32 in the same month last year.

The medium-duty segment is in a good place, with total units rising to 717 from 598 month on month, is 30 units up on the same month last year and, at 3,381 and
is nearly 240 units up for the year on this time last year.

Fuso and Hino have made much of the running here, eating into segment leader Isuzu’s market share, which has continued its fall from above 40 percent a year ago to around the mid-30s both for the month and the year to date.

Also firing is the light-duty segment, which is showing a clean pair of heels both to the previous month and the previous year, with 899 units sold in June over 753 in May and 791 in June 2012 and with the year to date figure at 4,385 as opposed to the previous 4,297.

Best performed here is Isuzu, jumping from 271 in May to 340, though Fuso, Hino and, as mentioned, Iveco all had pleasing growth.

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