May truck sales figures have shown another month of pain for the industry suffering like so many others under the yolk of the Covid 19 crisis.
While just about every maker saw sales down on the May 2019 figures it wasn’t all bad news with several manufacturers bouncing back after even more dismal sales numbers in. April 2020. Overall the market saw 2621 trucks sold in May, down 935 trucks on the May 2019 result but up 319 units on the April figure.
Isuzu , which suffered a huge slump in April, bounced back to sell a total of 710 trucks in May to lead the market with 27.1 per cent share, while Hino remains a bastion of consistency and although being off the 482 trucks it sold in May 2019, still managed a creditable 427 trucks in last month which was also up 34 units on its April 2020 figures.
In figures that reflect a degree of resilience in light and medium markets Fuso had a strong result in May moving 272 trucks to be third overall. Fuso’s numbers were just 20 units down on May 2019, but up 79 trucks on its April result.
\The pain was really substantial in Heavy Duty with Volvo again leading arch rival Kenworth in the segment with both brands dropping large numbers of sales on results from May last year while also being down on April sales numbers.
Volvo dropped 37.2 per cent on its May 2019 figures, leading heavy duty with 155 sales to also be fourth in the overall truck market, while it dropped 33 units or 17.5 per cent on its April 2020 results.
Kenworth also had tough times in May selling just 108 trucks for the month down 47 per cent on its May 2019 figures and was also 19 units down on the April 2019 result. More importantly for the Bayswater based truck maker, rival Volvo again beat them in May by a substantial margin and the long time market leader now trails the Swedish brand by 106 units year to date, the biggest margin it has trailed its opponent in many years.
Both the Volvo factory and the Kenworth factories were closed for a substantial part of April which clearly would have affected sales in the heavy duty sector.
Results across the rest of the market were also dismal with Mack in sixth with 77 sales, down 27 on May 2019, Iveco seventh with 75 sales off 91 units, Mercedes eighth with 73 sales off 90 on last year. DAF was month with a strong 44 sales up five units on its 2019 while UD and Fiat tied for tenth overall.
We will have a full analysis of all the figures on truckandbus.net.au in the next few days
