After another record year in 2024 the Australian truck market got away to a solid start in 2025 with a slight increase in sales volume across the market last month compared with January 2024.
The result was a three per cent increase on the total trucks sold in the first month last year, a small but significant increase in an apparent slowing market.
Having said that total heavy duty sales for the month were off 50 trucks or five per cent lower than the same month last year, while light duty dropped 95 units or 11. 5 per cent compared with last year. Medium duty was the only sector to increase sales year on year with a 7.2 per cent or 32 truck rise on last year.
For all of that the market is skewed severely at the moment with the enormous back log in delivering and registering new trucks as a result of delays at body builders and supply issues, meaning many trucks being registered today having been sold in 2023 and even some in 2022.
Isuzu starts its 37th year since taking the number one on the TIC’s Australian T-Mark truck sales charts and naturally got off to a flying start by leading the market once more.
Isuzu sold 765 trucks overall in January to take 27.5 per cent share overall, placing it a whopping 524 units ahead of its nearest rival, Hino with 241 total sales for the month.
Hino barely beat home Fuso in the race for second spot with the Daimler owned brand falling just 11 trucks short of toppling Hino once more. Fuso beat Hino on several monthly tallies last year and have started this year far closer to Hino than it has in previous, promising a strong battle between the two ahead. This will be particular so given Hino’s facing some stated problems with supply in the second half of 2025.
With Fuso on 230 total sales, heavy duty king Kenworth was able to register 216 trucks in total, all of which were heavy duty models, to place it a close run fourth.
By comparison, Volvo got off to a slow start with just 129 total sales in January, all but one of them being heavy duty trucks, while that single other truck was a medium duty variant.
Those numbers, when laid across the heavy duty sector results give Kenworth top billing in the segment. However, while Volvo finished behind it in overall market results, in heavy duty Isuzu trumped Volvo significantly, finishing second with 147 heavy duty registrations, 21 more heavies than its Swedish rival.
Further down the heavy pecking order Scania and Mercedes-Benz finished level pegging for equal fourth, both recording 74 sales, while Hino was next with 56, Mack with 50, Fuso 36,MAN with 27 and Iveco rounding out the top ten with 23 heavy duty sales for the month.
In medium duty Isuzu captured a dominant 55.7 per cent slice of the segment with 263 registrations, more than double the 125 units sold by Hino and almost five times the 55 truck tally of third placed Fuso.
None of the other brands broke double figures with Mercedes and UD both registering eight medium duties, Hyundai five, Iveco four, MAN three and Volvo just one.
Lighht duty, not surprisingly, was also dominated by Isuzu with 48.8 per cent share, thanks to 355 sales in the sector, again more than double its nearest rival. In this instance that was Fuso with a satisfactory 139 sales and 19.1 per cent share.
The shock turn up for the month was that Fiat matched Hino, with both the Italian brand and Japanese marque, equal on 60 light duty trucks.
It is the first time in the history of the T-Mark sales figures that Fiat has equalled one of the dominant Japanese brands and surely signals some of the sales pain Hino has in store later this year, and into 2026.
Behind the leading four came Renault with 41 Master light trucks, Iveco with 23, Mercedes with 20 Sprinter based machines, Hyundai and LDV with 14 each and Ford and VW each with one apiece.
While Mercedes Benz and its Sprinter van have dominated the van sector in the TIC reports for some years, newcomer LDV is making ground on the established German market leader in the sector.
Mercedes registered 222 Sprinters in January for 32.3 per cent share, while LDV sold 155 of its large vans and Ford 127 Transits in the month. Renault with 84, Fiat with 66, Iveco with 20 and VW with 14 made up the numbers in the sector.
The opening salvos in the 2025 truck sales wars have just been fired and it is a long run to the closing off of the charts in December, so it remains to be seen which brands can win the monthly battles and also who can be victorious for the year come December.
