With the release of the latest Australian truck sales figures by the Truck Industry Council, the heavy duty truck market results show Kenworth fighting back after losing number one status to Volvo earlier in 2020.
With 159 heavy duty truck sales in August, Kenworth came in at number one, with Isuzu racking up 123 heavy duty sales to grab number two status. This left Volvo back in an, unfamiliar, third position for August with 110 heavy truck sales.
However, on the year to date figures, and despite Kenworth fighting back, Volvo retain number one status for 2020. The lead has slipped from 101 in July to 52 at the moment. This is in a year where overall sales in the heavy duty segment are 23 per cent down on the same time last year. The caveat is that we must remember that 2019 was a record breaking year all round, while 2020 sees a different set of records being broken during the pandemic crisis.
Looking at the overall truck market, the situation does not look quite so dire. Sales numbers are down, but only 13.5 per cent below the results at the same point in 2019. Sales activity has slowed but good numbers in the lighter market segments are compensating, to a certain extent, for the drop in heavy sales.
In the light duty market sector sales are down in 2020, compared to 2019, but only at 7,093, which is 6.4 per cent below the record sales in 2019. This is the kind of sales levels truck manufacturers could have expected in a normal year after such a strong boom last year.
Medium duty truck sales did not fare quite so well with the August 2020 sales results coming in 14.5 per cent below those in 2019, at 4319.
A trend in the medium duty sector for 2020 appears to be continuing, as truck buyers stick to tried and trusted brands. The perennial top three, Isuzu, Hino and Fuso have all increased market share in 2020 compared to 2019. Between the three of them they control 90.4 per cent of the entire medium duty market, leaving the other seven brands in the segment picking up the scraps.
