The Australian truck market is in the best shape it has been for more than a decade with a record 3,879 commercial vehicles sold last month.
June’s figure was up 161 units on the previous best months of June 2007, which was pre-global financial crisis, and June 2009 which was aided by government grants.
The light duty segment also broke a longstanding record with 1,233 units, up 63 on June 2005’s figure.
Overall there has been a total of 16,791 sales year-to-date, with 9,633 in the past quarter.
CEO of the Truck Industry Council, Tony McMullan says 2017 is shaping up to be a great year for the heavy duty end of the market.
“This first half year result paves the way for a solid start to quarter three and whole of year,” he said.
“It is encouraging to finally see a couple of long standing truck sales records being broken in the month of June. Although the heavy duty segment has not broken any existing sales marks, the segment is posting very good sales month-on-month.
The heavy duty segment is up 18.8 per cent (198 trucks) on last June with 1,250, taking its yearly total to 5,130 – up 13.8 per cent (620 trucks) on the first half of last year.
Following the better than expected performance in 2016, medium duty sales were 7.9 per cent (64 trucks) down in June with 743, however are still on track to level with last year’s overall result with the year-to-date total hitting 3,322 – just 0.7 per cent (23 units) behind the mid-2016 figure.
While year-to-date 2017 sales of 16,791 trucks and vans has fallen well short of the best first half year result achieved also in the pre-GFC year of 2008 when 18,218 new vehicles were delivered to the end of June.
The record light duty figure saw a rise of 11.8 per cent (130 units) on last year and bumping the annual total to 5,451, up 8.6 per cent (432 trucks) on the 2016 mid-way point.
Light duty vans were also up for the month by 10.7 per cent (63 vans) with 653 sales last month, contributing to the overall rise of three per cent for the year (85 vans) with 2,888 to the end of June.
TIC president Phil Taylor said the signs are encouraging heading into the back half of 2017.
“The solid second quarter result builds on the encouraging sales seen in the first part of 2017. We have seen a new bench mark set for June sales overall and in the Light Duty truck segment. Year-to-date we are not back to pre-GFC sales yet, however new truck sales are the best we have seen for nine or more years and that is very pleasing. It has been a long road to recovery and I hope that we see current sales trends continue for the remainder of 2017 and into 2018,” Taylor said.
