Isuzu Trucks continues to lead the new truck market despite a 16.5% drop year-on-year in November sales.
The company is currently sitting on 976 registrations as at November 30, and it’s aim is to break the 1000 registration mark by year end.
Our tallied figures show its direct Japanese competitors, Hino are sitting on 599 registrations to November 30 and Fuso on 631.
Thats 377 (Hino) and 345 (Fuso) units respectively behind Isuzu Trucks.
Isuzu Truck general manager Colin Muir says the November 2015 result was less than what the distributor had hoped it would achieve, and he attributed this to late arriving boats from Japan, and some customer trucks taking longer to build and not leaving the body builders quickly enough to be checked off and registered for the road.
Commenting today on preliminary figures received by him, Muir noted that Isuzu had taken some market share from Hino, but Fuso had clawed some market share back, he reckoned the brand had a particularly good month in light trucks predominantly.
“We expect to have a very healthy registration figure in the December sales month to cap off what has been a very stellar year for Isuzu Trucks,” says Muir.
Fuso saw the highest number of new truck registrations in November with 86 units, followed by Mercedes-Benz with 72 new truck registrations, Isuzu Trucks saw 66 registrations, Hino saw 49 registrations and UD Trucks had 20.
Fiat saw 19 truck registrations, Volvo saw 16, and Iveco saw 15 units registered in November.
Paccar brands DAF and Kenworth performed strongly in the heavy truck segment with 19 and 13 registrations respectively.
Southpac Trucks general sales manager Richard Smart says that 2015 is shaping up to best the best sales year yet in the 21 years the company has been selling both DAF and Kenworth brands.
Smart also commented that 2015 has been a “stellar” year. To the end of November 30, Southpac Trucks had seen 376 registrations collectively for the two Paccar truck brands.
“This could very well be the year that the Kenworth brand makes up 50% of the heavy US truck sales here in New Zealand, and we need to register just four more trucks in December to make this our best Kenworth sales year yet,” says Smart.
