The Australian truck market had another strong result in October, finishing the month with an extremely strong tally of 3805 for the month, giving the industry a year to date total of 34226, just 220 units down on where the industry was at the end of October, in the all-time record year of 2018.
The prospect of breaking that industry record in another year of pandemic, and with well publicised supply shortages, underlines just how strong the market is, and if the total for this year falls short it will only by a small number of vehicles.
Isuzu kicked clear with another month of high sales for the market leader topping the charts with 966 sales and 25.4 per cent market share, as rival Hino slipped again, down to 473 sales and 12.4 per cent share, in the face of a strong performance from third placed Fuso, which finished the month only 53 units behind Hino.
Fuso’s 420 trucks and 11 per cent follows the strong trend from the Daimler owned brand over the past few months as it expanded its line up and increased its market penetration.
In terms of the headlining Heavy Duty sector, Kenworth continues to go from strength to strength, and finished the month with a massive 304 heavy sales, 28 trucks ahead of its October 2018 result and 35 units ahead of its September result. Kenworth was also fourth outright and finished the month with almost double the sales of its long time heavy duty rival Volvo. To rub further salt into Volvo’s wounds, Paccar’s Euro brand, DAF had another remarkable month with 78 sales lifting the corporate tally well ahead of the Volvo Group’s three brands confined.
Supply issues, particularly the supply of silicon chips for electronic control and systems is affecting some brands and models more than others.
One industry observer opined that you can see the brands that don’t have Euro 6 by tracking some of their sales numbers, as Euro 6 require more chips than Euro5 and are suffering more delays. It may not be quite that simplistic but there is more than a grain of logic in the summation.
It was a remarkable performance from the Paccar brands amidst all of the travails of the world at the moment, and the strength of Kenworth shone brightly. So too did Isuzu, which was number two in the segment with 163 HD sales, beating Volvo which continues to suffer supply issues that have hampered its sales potential since the middle of 2020.
Mercedes Benz finished fifth overall with a total of 164 trucks of all classes, however this is skewed by the Sprinter based light trucks that are distributed by the car division of Daimler in Australia, which is soon to be a totally separate corporation. Nevertheless the Benz result was still strong with 108 heavies, four medium duty and 52 Sprinter trucks in the light sector. The company’s heavy result saw in October placed it fifth in HD, just behind Scania in fourth with another strong tally of 115, and ahead of DAF in sixth with 78 and UD with 68.
Isuzu dominated medium duty capturing 48.4 per cent share, despite a slight dip in its volume from the previous month, registering 294 mediums in October, down seven units from 301 in September. Rival Hino was next with 174 units up 20 from its September result, while Fuso had a big dip with just 95 mediums, down 57 units on its exceptional September numbers. UD was fourth with 21 units, while every other brand was in single digits in the medium sector.
In Light Duty there were some really interesting numbers with Isuzu having an exceptional month thanks to a light duty tally of 509 trucks and 39.1 per cent share. The result meant Isuzu came within 11 trucks of bettering the combined result of Fuso and Hino.
Therein lays the other intriguing result with Fuso having a bumper month in Light with 266 sales and 20.4 per cent share, bettering its rival Hino by 12 trucks, with the Toyota owned brand slipping to third in light duty for the first time since August last year and in only the fifth time in the last four years.
Fiat with 83, Iveco with 73 and Benz with 52 light duty trucks for the month where the next best in a bumper month that saw 1303 light duty trucks sold in October. Hyundai had one of its better months moving 18 of its Mighty models
Vans had a strong month as well with demand for logistics and last mile delivery driving sales to 581 vans sold in October. Mercedes-Benz Sprinter topped the segment with 220 sales well ahead of Ford Transit and Renault Master both with 84, then Iveco on 78, and both Fiat and VW on 58.
Strap yourself in folks, it’s going to be an interesting ride for the truck market between now and 31 December
