The Australian truck market continued to boom in October with some of the best sales figures seen since the GFC, eight years ago. In fact it was best October sales figures since the T-Mark system was started in 2008.
A total of 3410 commercial vehicles were sold in October making it the best month so far this year and taking the year to date sales to 29,704, just 1047 units short of 2008’s record ten-month figure of 30,751. Heavy duty trucks had a particularly strong month logging a record 1191 sales as the industry slotted into overdrive on the back of the infrastructure and building boom. Heavy Duty for the year to date is running at 9800 units up 347on the first ten months of last year
Kenworth had a really strong month after a ‘softish’ September recording an October record, 13 units ahead of its October 2008 result when it sold 253 trucks. Similarly up in Brisbane there would have been plenty of celebrations at Volvo with sales of 187 units. Isuzu was third in the sector with 148 heavy sales and Mack fourth with 111. Mercedes-Benz (86 trucks), Scania (82 trucks) and MAN (45) also all had strong results in October to add to the heavy duty success story. It must be noted that while MAN’s October result was up 136 per cent on its October 2016 result of just 19 trucks, some of that increase comes as a result of it continuing to fulfil an Australian Defence Forces contract which is inflating some of its numbers.
Daimler’s Freightliner was a notable negative in heavy duty for the month with the US brand logging just 28 sales down 26 per cent on its 38 sales in October last year.
Despite a TIC slip up that saw some sales attributed to Ford Heavy Duty the hope that a Louisville return might have quietly occurred was short lived when the anomaly was clarified, the three Ford sales were actually coded incorrectly and were in fact three Hyundai light duty EX4 models.
While Hyundai made its return to the sales charts with its new distributor with three sales, the other name returning was that of International which notched up two sales under its renewed distributor relationship with Iveco, which logged 53 heavy sales under its own name.
Isuzu continues to be the overall market leader notching 824 sales or 24.2 per cent of the overall market taking it to 7350 units for the year to date. Hino was again second overall with 438 units or 12.8 per cent market share for the month and a total of 3894 sales for the year, was only 22 units below that of the bumper, pre-GFC 2008 total for the month and at 7350, 342 behind 2008’s year-to-date figure. Fuso took third with 336 sales or 9.9 per cent of the market in October reaching 2980 so far this year.
Isuzu really stamped its authority in light duty setting a ten-year record with 434 sales and a whopping 41.7 per cent share of the sector while Fuso put in a blinder to edge Hino for second by just 16 units. Fuso’s 220 sales just over half that achieved by the market leader demonstrates just how strong Isuzu is in light duty, while Hino moved just 204 units in light duty for the month
It was a different story in Medium-duty where Isuzu only just outpointed rival Hino by a margin of 41 trucks. Isuzu’s 242 sales and 37.1 per cent share was nearly matched by Hino’s impressive 201 units and 30.8 per cent share reflects a strong showing from its recently updated 500 series which is clearly taking the fight up to Isuzu in the Medium sector.
Medium Duty sales were the second best result for the sector in the last decade with 652 sales for the month and 5901 the year to date.
In the light-duty segment Isuzu would not stand to be headed this October, its 434 a 10-year record, with Fuso and, especially, Hino both up and in their own record territory but still not a threat to the top position.
