Commercial vehicle registrations have taken a dip for the start of the year with both new and used trucks down for January year-on-year.
Total registrations of new trucks and buses over 3500kg GVM sits at 470 units for January. This is down 9.3% compared to the same period last year which saw 518 registrations fo new commercials for the month.
Isuzu is market leader for January with 80 units registered and a 17% market share. The brand was down 23.1% compared to the 104 units registered in the same period last year.
Fuso is in second spot for the month, down 16.4% with 61 units registered and a 13% market share.
Hino is third, down 1.9% with 52 units registered and an 11.1% market share.
Mercedes-Benz follows, up 135.3% with 40 units, Volvo down 25% (39), Fiat up 27.3% (28), Scania up 133.3% (28), Iveco up 46.7% (22), Kenworth unchanged (22) and UD Trucks down 11.8% (15).
Total used imported truck and bus registrations were down 27.7% year-on-year with 133 registrations in January compared to 184 in the same period the previous year.
Toyota leads the used commercial import market for the month with 28 units registered and a 21.1 market share. This was down 26.3% compared to the 38 units registered in the same period the previous year.
Hino is in second spot in the used market, down 25.7% with 26 units registered and a 19.5% market share.
Isuzu is third, down 41.7% with 21 units registered and a 15.8% market share.
Mitsubishi follows, down 33.3% with 14 units registered, Nissan down 54.5% (10), Mazda up 133.3% (7), Mercedes-Benz (5), Fiat up 100% (4), Fuso down 57.1% (3) and Ford down 33.3% (2).
Foley Trucks director Thomas Church says the market is not making record sales like it was in recent years but it’s still “steady as she goes” .
“This year has started quite slowly and everyone is down a little … it’s pretty average at the moment,” he says.
Foley Trucks is also on the move from its leased Auckland site in Leonard Rd, Mt Wellington, and will be purchasing its own property in Hamilton.
It will move in May and will eventually have a new purpose-built truck yard open by the end of the year.
In the meantime, Church says the new government infrastructure announcement will certainly boost truck sales once the work gets underway.
“But do they have the people to build it and when will it begin? When that happens, sales will definitely go up, but the question is when the work begins,” Church says.
