New truck deliveries are on track to rewrite the history books for the first half of the year.
The total Australian new truck market for May 2022 reached 3777 units, up 3.8 per cent on the same month in 2021.
The result falls just shy of the all-time record for May heavy vehicle sales, set in 2018 when 3931 heavy vehicles were sold.
All truck segments posted positive growth over that of May 2021.
Year-to-date (YTD) the result for the total market is even better, tracking above this time last year by 721 vehicles, up 4.8 per cent, with a total of 15,900 heavy vehicles sold to the end of May.
When compared with the first five months of the record year of 2018, when 15,739 trucks had been sold to the end of May, sales are up by one per cent, or 161 trucks, showing that the heavy vehicle market is on track for a first half year sales record in 2022.
As has been the case for all of 2022 thus far, the heavy-duty (HD) truck segment again led the way with sales growth over 2021 sales, with 1274 HD units sold, up a significant 21.3 percent, or 224 trucks, over May 2021.
YTD, 5322 heavies have been delivered, up 20.52 per cent (906 trucks) over this time last year.
Kenworth again led the way with 260 sales for May, with Isuzu (176) holding on to second spot overall with another solid month.
Scania was the big mover amongst the chasing pack in May with 120 units, good enough to seal fourth overall YTD with a total of 355 sales.
Tony McMullan, CEO of Truck Industry Council, the peak industry body for truck manufacturers and importers into Australia, said the signs are all positive that the history books will be rewritten by the time the June sales are tallied.
“These strong sales are a good indicator that business confidence is strong in the road freight sector as it is across most economic segments,” McMullan concluded.
The medium-duty (MD) segment continues to perform well too, just outselling the corresponding month in 2021 by 4 units, a 0.6 per cent increase.
In total 681 medium trucks were delivered in May 2022. However, the YTD numbers look much better, due to strong sales over the first four months of this year. A total of 2964 MD trucks have been delivered, up a very healthy 9.7 per cent (261 trucks) over the same period in 2021.
Light-duty (LD) trucks were again well into positive territory up 14 per cent for the month with 1329 sales in May 2022, this compares to 1166 sales for the same month in 2021. A total of 5766 LD trucks have been delivered thus far in 2022, compared to 5250 in 2021, a gain of 9.8 per cent YTD in 2022.
The only blight on sales numbers is in the light duty van sector which is really struggling, likely due to supply chain issues in Europe, the manufacturing base for most van brands over 3.5t GVM sold in Australia.
Van sales in May were down by 33.9 per cent over May 2021 with just 493 vans being delivered. This takes the YTD van tally to 1848, down 962 vans (-34.2 per cent) over the result to the end of May 2021.