September proved an interesting and intriguing month when it came to commercial vehicle sales figures with the monthly tally outstripping the same month in 2023 and the year to date figures also ahead of last year’s total for the first nine months.
Even if you remove the extra numbers added by the inclusion of the LDV brand to the monthly TIC T-Mark stats, last months numbers would be pretty pleasing for most brands.
One of the interesting anomalies to pop up in the September figures was the fact that perennial overall number three seller, Daimler’s Fuso brand, slipped to number five last month, coming in behind Heavy duty behemoth Kenworth and its Swedish rival Volvo.
Isuzu had another strong month to top the pop charts with a total sales figure across all sectors of 1097 for the month, giving it a dominant 24.1 per cent share of the overall market. That was 37 units more than it sold in Septamber last year, but it also means the leading brand is almost 500 units behind its year to date numbers from 12 months ago.
As we mentioned the overall market YTD is 2803 units ahead if where it was this time last year, which of course is skewed by the inclusion of LDV’s 2237 units which were not being counted in 2023.
While Isuzu was out in the lead, as normal, Hino was second best with a bit under half the sales of its Japanese rival. The Toyota controlled brand sold 407 trucks in September for a nine per cent share of the market, while Kenworth slipped into third with another stellar performance. The Paccar brand registered 382 trucks for the month, all of them heavies, putting it just 25 units behind the multi-segment selling Hino.
Kenworth’s performance further cemented its dominance over heavy rival Volvo, which despite also having a good month to place fourth overall with 286 sales, has now slipped almost 300 trucks behind its heavy rival YTD in the battled for supremacy in the big truck sector.
With just three selling months to go this year the task for Volvo to overtake Kenworth seems like an impossible one. Given Volvo led its US based rival at the end of July, the accelerated sales from the Paccar brand must have really galled the team at Wacol.
Exactly why Fuso’s sales have dropped in such a hole is hard to explain and T&B News approached Daimler for a response and the explanation given was that “there were some supply issues with Fuso, much to do with switching to the new upcoming facelifted model Canter”.
The company also explained that the lowly tally of just 22 trucks for its Freightliner brand in September could also be down to some supply issues, apparently particularly with parts supply for local adaptation of the Cascadia.
In fact Freightliner was only marginally ahead of its US Daimler stablemate Western Star in terms of total sales, with the Penske distributed brand moving 14 trucks, just seven less than its senior sibling. Freightline was not only outsold by Fiat, but also by lowly Hyundai, as well as UD, Mack, DAF and even MAN.
With Scania’s 116 placing it in ninth overall, UD’s 82 meant the Volvo distributed Japanese brand rounded out the top , just ahead of its stablemate Mack with 76 trucks to place 11th in the overall market.
Clearly Kenworth’s continued strong sales in heavy duty has put it in a good place heading into the final quarter and the 2024 heavy duty crown really is the Paccar brand’s title to lose from here.
In terms of heavies, Volvo again gave up ground to Isuzu with the Swedish brand only finishing 76 registrations ahead of its Japanese opponent on 207 for the month. Isuzu’s strong performance in heavies continues to be underpinned by the uptake of the bigger Isuzus for vocations such as waste, concrete agitator and tipper dog work that was once the happy hunting ground of Iveco with its Acco models. The demise of Acco. opened the door for Isuzu and the number one seller has well and truly kicked it open to its massive advantage.
Behind the top three in heavies, Scania grabbed fourth in the sector with 113 registrations, to place it two units ahead of German rival Mercedes-Benz in fifth.
Next in heavy duty came Mack with 76, followed by 71 for UD, 68 for Hino, 59 for Fuso and bouncing out the top ten was DAF with 44 units. The also rans included MAN with 38 heavy duty models, Iveco with 29, ahead of Freightliner with 22 , Western Star with 13 and Dennis Eagle with 11.
The heavy duty market’s numbers YTD are ahead of where it was in September last year, both in terms of the sales for the first nine months and for the moth itself. Heavy sales for September tallied 1530 units, which was 134 trucks ahead of the result last year, while the YTD total for the first nine months has the sector on 12858 sales, which is 206 ahead of the same period last year. Kenworth is 139 trucks ahead of where it was this time last year while rival Volvo is 121 trucks down on its 2023 tally to the end of September.
Medium duty saw Isuzu take close to half of the sector with 350 registrations and a share of 49.4 per cent for the month. Hino was next best with 201 sales in September which translated to 28.3 per cent for the segment, while rival Fuso just missed out on breaking three figures, selling 99 trucks for the month and grabbing 14 per cent slice of the sector.
Behind the dominant Japanese marques Iveco was the next best with 17 medium duty models, followed by Hyundai. The Korean brand continues to edge up in its monthly sales numbers, particularly in medium duty, with 11 registrations in September. That number put Hyundai line ball with long established UD also with 11, and ahead of other well known brands including Mercedes with eight, Volvo with seven, MAN with three and DAF with two mediums.
The medium sector results in September puts it 152 units ahead on YTD numbers than the same nine months in 2023.
Light duty, always the happy hunting ground for Isuzu, was no different last month. Isuzu sold 540 trucks for the month in light duty, down 33 units on its result in the same month in 2023 but still enough to give it a dominant 40.7 per cent share of the sector.
The historic number came from Fiat, which we mentioned earlier. The bumper 230 light ruck sales for the Italian brand put it well ahead of both Hino and Fuso, both of which had disappointing results in the small truck sector. Fiat’s numbers gave it 17.3 per cent of the sector while Hino’s 138 sees placed it third with 10.4 per cent share. Fuso finished a close fourth with 128 sales and 9.6 per cent share.
Iveco also had a good result in the light duty market, moving 127 trucks, just one behind Fuso. The irony of this is that the two Italian based brands combined sold 357 units in light duty in September, a result that is sure to give management at Hino and Fuso more than a few sleepless nights.
Overall for September light duty sales were at 1327 units, up 24 units on the same month last year, while. the YTD results puts the small truck sector 1590 units behind the nine month totals for the sector last year. The sales for this year 10827 for the YTD, while last year the tally was at 12417.
Chinese brand LDV held sway in the van sector, knocking off long time van sector sales leader Mercedes-Benz in September. LDV sold 245 vans in September to take 25 per cent for the segment, 42 vans ahead of the Mercedes Benz total.
Backing up the strong light truck performance, Fiat’s Ducati van also had a strong month taking third in the van segment with 154 units for the month and a 15.7 per cent share.
Behind that came Renault with 138 vans, Ford with 117 , VW with 65, Iveco with 52 and Peugeot with a meagre six sales of its large van.
Despite interest rate pressure and a softening economy there truck and van market is holding up reasonably Wel and is still on track for a record result so long as it can weather the battering the economic headwinds appear to be inflicting.
