New heavy truck and bus registrations (over 3500kg) continues to grow with 349 units registered for April 2015, a 7.7% increase on the 324 units registered in April 2014.
Year-to-date there have been 1540 new truck and bus registrations in the over 3500kg segment as opposed to 1471 at the same time last year, prompting one distributor to comment that the new truck market until the end of April was relatively flat.
Used imported heavy truck and bus accounted for 157 registrations in April as opposed to 84 at the same time last year, and year-on-year the tally has reached 530 registrations, up from 402.
Once again market leader Isuzu Trucks continued the charge with 74 units registered for a 21% market share and a nearly 40% increase on April 2014 registrations of 53 units.
In second place Mitsubishi Fuso also increased its year-to-date tally, with increased April registrations of 51 trucks from 32 a year ago. Year-on-year Fuso is up from 177 units to 183.
Volvo Trucks also enjoyed a better April 2015 with 46 registrations as opposed to 41 in the previous corresponding period. The Palmerston North-based distributor has seen the Swedish truck brand increase its year-to-date sales from 122 to 130.
Hino however saw a mild decline in truck and bus sales from 55 units in April 2014 to 41 last month, and its year to date tally has slipped back from 212 at this time in 2014 to 185 currently.
The Isuzu Truck brand says it registered 21 N-series light duty trucks, 35 F-series medium duty trucks, and 18 Giga series heavy duty trucks. It says with the April result it would expect a slight increase in year-to-date market share.
“April was a good month for Isuzu exceeding retail target, and strengthening our position in the market which we can confirm when the registration figures are updated,” says Isuzu Truck sales and marketing manager Michael Doeg.
“Current pre sales orders for VC36 Giga are going well with our current order bank exceeding our initial expectations, and with the first of our production units landing this month we would expect to see increased interest and activity,” he says.
Porirua-based distributor Mitsubishi Motors saw 51 Fuso registrations during April.
Fuso national sales manager Mike Davidson says the distributor is very pleased with this result.
“This was in fact up by 60% compared to April 2014 (32 registrations) and took us ahead of our year-to-date result from 2014.
“We are slightly down on market share on where we want to be (15%) – but the good result in April will help in that respect,” says Davidson.
“Fighter models were our star performers in April, with almost half of all Fuso registrations coming from our popular mid-sized truck.
“March saw the first drop in Truck & Bus sales (against March 2014) since November last year. These were only two months showing a decline for at least 18 months,” he says.
Davidson says that customer enquiry is still strong and the market is still buoyant – but he believes that growth is a little more inconsistent year-to-date.
