With January traditionally the lowest month for truck deliveries in the calendar year, truck manufacturers are quietly confident about sales prospect for 2010, after a ‘solid’ start to the year.
Although Isuzu and Kenworth remain the dominant players in their respective categories, after yet another year of sales dominance in 2009, the lower rankings have seen some interesting trends emerge.
Mercedes-Benz threw down the gauntlet after delivering 146 of its vans, backing this up with an extra 24 truck sales, leaving them just behind subsidiary Fuso, which delivered 190 trucks for the first sales month.
Hino remains a solid second with 250 deliveries, however even this impressive effort pales against the work of Isuzu in handing over the keys to 468 trucks, more than a quarter of the total monthly market.
Kenworth remains equally impressive in its heavy duty segment stomping ground, with 92 trucks entering customer operation, although the performance of Western Star and Freightliner to be second and third, with 60 and 53 deliveries respectively.
Also making a big mark on the sales sheet was Ford, which finished second to Mercedes-Benz in the van segment, finalising 66 transactions in the van and light duty truck markets.
While the results are solid rather than spectacular, there is a feeling among a number of manufacturers the numbers could have been better, however many trucks are still with body builders waiting for completion.
The expectation among the retail truck trade is that as body builders gear up for more production, this will be reflected in more delivered trucks.
Also encouraging, although too far off for manufacturers to make informed speculation, is news of the latest coal export contract in Queensland, which requires significant infrastructure upgrades before any exports can begin, most of which will require strong participation from the transport industry.