Daimler Truck North America has reported a 4.7 per cent decline in truck sales across the USA and Canada for the second quarter of 2024 compared with the same period last year.
Daimler reported it sold 48,230 vehicles in the second quarter, compared with 50,618 trucks and buses in the same period in 2023.
Daimler’s US Heavy duty Class 8 truck brand Freightliner, is the Class 8 market leader in the USA while its stablemate, Western Star has a strong market share, and its Thomas Built Bus brand, is a major player in the U.S. school bus market, with the three making up a huge chunk of the North American commercial vehicle market, and a downturn with the leading player could spell problems for the overall US truck industry .
The US downturn may help Daimler Trucks Australia’s ongoing issues with supply of Freightliner trucks, which has been hampered by the strong demand in North America, virtually since the launch of the Cascadia line in Australia in 2019.
DTNA’s parent company Daimler Truck sold 112,195 trucks and buses globally in the most recent quarter, which also represented a slide, with the numbers being 14.9per cent down compared with the prior-year’s 131,888, with its sales in Asia particularly taking a hammering.
Daimler Truck’s Asian subsidiary saw a 29.3 per cent slump in sales to 28,342 in Q2, down from 40,097 vehicles in the year-ago period.
The European-based Mercedes-Benz unit also found it challenging in the second quarter, with sales of down 22 per cent to 30,604 compared with the 39,236 trucks it moved a year earlier.
Across the first half of 2024, Daimler Truck sold 221,106 trucks and buses for the two quarter, which represented a 13.9 per cent downturn compared with the 257,060 trucks and buses to sold in the first half of 2023.
While no further North American sales breakdown or commentary was offered by the truck maker, DTNA’s ability to outperform its Daimler Truck siblings was not unexpected.
During the parent company’s first-quarter earnings call at the start of May, CEO Martin Daum said North America offered a much brighter outlook than Europe or Asia, adding that orders were continuing to come in strong. Daum added that the successful conclusion of union negotiations also cleared the road ahead for DTNA.
“We are fully prepared to go full steam throughout the entire year,” Daum said.
“I’m really glad that we were able to settle with the [United Auto Workers union] without any strike, so we don’t have a loss on that side. I feel much more positive about the market,” the Daimler Truck supremo said.
“When you look at the U.S., the highway business is certainly down compared with last year, and it is compensated by what we call the vocational business, and the medium-duty business,” he added.
First quarter order activity at DTNA did jump 31 per cent year over year to 44,530 from 34,068 while its second quarter result is expected to see similar results, according to Deutsche Bank analyst Nicolai Kempf.
“From a low base we think orders improve in North America, but will likely remain muted in Europe. We understand that unit sales in North America will sequentially improve driven by the vocational and medium duty segment,” Kempf said in a July 7 research note.
Daimler Truck expects to release full Q2 earnings on Aug. 1, it said.
