Kenworth was again the star performer in the final monthly Truck Industry Council sales tally for 2020, with the perennial Heavy Duty sales leader coming home with a wet sail again, taking victory in the sector for the year, after Volvo’s strong challenge fell away in the closing months.
Kenworth registered an incredibly strong 326 heavy sales to finish the yearwith 2115 sales, 376 ahead of Volvo which had led the Heavy pack by more than 100 units at the end of July, only to have supply issues prevent it from maintaining its lead over Kenworth for the last five months.
The result for the Paccar flagship brand in the overall sales tally in December saw it finish just 49 units behind third placed Fuso, and meant that Kenworth sold a whopping 110 trucks more than it did in the same month in 2019.
Overall there were 34476 heavy commercial vehicles sold in Australia in 2020, down 3484 units or just 9.1 per cent on the 2019 tally, which given the big down turn in the second quarter due to Covid shutdowns, must be seen as a pretty reasonable result.
Isuzu led the overall truck market for a 32nd consecutive year, with total sales of 8276 and 24 per cent market share. This was only 345 units or 4 per cent behind its 2019 tally and while it dropped a small amount of volume Isuzu improved its market share from 22.7 per cent to 24 per cent in a troubled 2020.
Hino was second overall with 5195 sales for the year end, following another strong performance in December with 509 trucks sold and 14.6 per cent market share for the month, giving the second placed maker a 15.1 per cent market share across the year.
Fuso took third overall for the year with a very healthy sales tally of 3529 and 376 sales in December. Unlike Isuzu and Hino, which were both slightly down on their 2019 sales totals, Fuso actually improved on its results, with year on year sales up 174 units. Meantime its month on month results were up a whopping 73 trucks, while it improved market share from 8.9 per cent in 2019 to 10.2 per cent in 2020.
Kenworth, as mentioned, took fourth for both the month and the year, only marginally behind Fuso in December, and is rumoured to have a substantial order bank running out well into 2021, with no sign that demand is softening.
In Heavy duty Kenworth may have been first, but daylight was a clear second, Volvo finishing the month with 131 sales, a 195 sales less than Kenworth. Volvo in second, led a tight pack of three, with Isuzu finishing third in the sector on 116 heavy sales, while Mercedes Benz had another good performance in December, registering 103 heavy sales, to be fourth in the sector.
Behind that the battle saw another close tussle, with Scania selling 75 heavies, just ahead of Mack and Fuso both on 69 for the month, while the rapidly improving DAF was only one unit behind with 68 sales in what was a big month for the other Paccar brand.
Freightliner’s new Cascadia is apparently still suffering from supply issues and is yet to have a real impact on the Heavy sector, with just 23 sold in December.
In the Medium duty segment, Isuzu bounced back from its rare defeat by Hino in November, to better its Japanese rival by 16 units in December. Isuzu sold 256 mediums for the month taking 39.1 per cent market share, while Hino registered 240 medium duty to take 36.6 per cent share. Both Isuzu and Hino sold more mediums in December than they did in the same month in 2020, while Fuso also improved with 107 mediums for the monthm, up from its 82 in the same month in 2019.
The dominance of the three Japanese brands was substantial in medium duty, in both December and for the year, with the three holding 90.9 per cent of the medium sector between them. Fourth for the month was Iveco with just 15 trucks in December, 92 trucks behind Fuso’s 107 sales. MAN took fourth in medium duty for the year with 178 trucks across 2020 and 13 for the month, largely on the back of further deliveries to fulfill its contract with the Australian Army.
In Light duty, Isuzu was clear leader for both December and the year, selling 388 light duty trucks in December for 36.3 per cent share and a yearly tally of 4353 trucks, giving it a share of 39.5 per cent in light duty for the year.
Hino sold 225 light duty machines in December for 21 per cent share, giving it a total of 2468 and 22.4 percent share for the year. Fuso again improved its results to register 200 light duty sales and 18.7 per cent share for the month, with 2022 sales and 18.4 per cent share for 2020.
Similar to the situation in medium duty, the three Japanese brands held the lion’s share of the market with 80.3 per cent of light duty between them, the next best being Iveco with 8.1 per cent share.
Mercedes Benz ruled the roost in vans with 182 sales in December ahead of Renault with 146 and Ford with 137.
