Class 8 Truck Sales Rise in December

This story appears in the Jan. 25 print edition of Transport Topics.

U.S. heavy-duty truck sales in December topped 10,000 units for the only month in 2009, but the grand total for the year of 94,798 units was the lowest since 1983 and 29% below the 2008 level, WardsAuto.com reported.

“Everywhere we wanted to look, things were worse in 2009 than 2008,” Kenny Vieth, partner and senior analyst at another firm that analyzes truck data, ACT Research Co., told Transport Topics. He said that “2009 made an already long downturn even longer.”

Last year “was obviously a challenging year for the truck business,” Kevin Flaherty, Mack Trucks Inc.’s senior vice president of sales, told TT.

“The combination of the freight recession, the severe downturn in the construction and housing markets, and the ongoing effects of the financial crisis all reduced demand for new trucks to levels not seen in at least a generation,” Flaherty said.

Original equipment makers sold 11,537 Class 8 trucks in December, down 9.5% from the 12,747 they sold in December 2008, Ward’s said in its Jan. 13 report.

The industry sold 94,798 Class 8s in all of 2009, compared with 133,473 trucks in 2008. It was the third consecutive year of deep sales drops, Ward’s data showed.

Paul Zajac, industry data manager at Ward’s, told TT that the 2009 total Class 8 sales were the lowest figure that Ward’s recorded for the United States since 1983, when it reported 81,647 sales.

New truck dealers said they saw a slight increase in sales toward the end of 2009 but expected little improvement in 2010, despite an increase in orders.

ACT Research said Jan. 18 that net orders for heavy-duty commercial vehicles rose to 11,919 units in December, up 37% from December 2008.

“Truck sales are not good. . . . It is like someone turned off the light,” Duane Kyrish, general manager of Longhorn International Trucks, Austin, Texas, told TT.

“We did see two things happen in late ’09,” Jim Lagana, general manager at McDevitt Trucks Inc., Manchester, N.H., told TT. “In October, a burst of ordering activity from owners trying . . . to beat 2010 price increases, and in December, a burst of purchasing activity, both for tax reasons and to beat 2010 prices.”

Some manufacturers said they were optimistic about an upturn.

“We think this business is going to recover quickly,” Jack Allen, North American Truck Group president for Navistar Inc., told an investors’ meeting at the company’s Engine Group headquarters in Melrose Park, Ill.

Allen said that Navistar, which makes International trucks, sees freight rates and freight levels flattening out.

“We think that’s good,” Allen said.

Daniel Ustian, Navistar’s chairman and chief executive officer, told investors Navistar recorded a 5% to 10% increase in truck sales in 2010, “especially on the heavy side . . . and back-ended,” with sales picking up the most in the last quarter of Navistar’s fiscal year, which ends Oct. 31.

“Volvo Trucks used the downturn to prepare for the coming upturn by increasing our efficiency and ability to respond to customer needs,” Scott Kress, senior vice president of sales and marketing, told TT.

Daimler Trucks North America and Paccar Inc. did not comment on their sales.

Among the eight major OEMs, Navistar’s International brand was the market-share leader for 2009 but second for December behind Freightliner, which was in second place for the year. Navistar and Freightliner each increased market share for the year, gaining 3.7 and 1.9 points, respectively.

Peterbilt Motors lost 0.2 percentage point of market share, year-to-year, while Kenworth Trucks, its Paccar Inc. stable mate, gained 0.4%.

The two biggest share losers were Sterling Trucks, which stopped production in March, and Volvo Trucks North America, which lost 2.3 points for the year. Its sister company Mack Trucks lost 0.8 point.

Daimler’s Western Star unit, the smallest heavy truck maker, lost 0.2 point.