The TIC said the Australian new truck market for May 2022 set a solid sales high of 3777 units, up 3.8 per cent on the same month in 2021.
This was just shy of the all-time record for May heavy vehicle sales, set in 2018 when 3931 heavy vehicles were sold.
All truck segments posted positive growth over that of May 2021. However the TIC said that as had been the case throughout 2022, van sales were down again for the month.
TIC CEO Tony McMullan said the month of June was proving to be typically strong for truck sales as the end of the financial year approaches.
“The signs are all positive that we will reach the halfway point of 2022 with a result that will rewrite the history books for heavy vehicle sales in Australia,” he said.
“These strong sales are a good indicator that business confidence is strong in the road freight sector as it is across most economic segments.”
Year-to-date the result for the total market is even better, tracking above this time last year by 721 vehicles, up 4.8 per cent, with a total of 15,900 heavy vehicles sold to the end of May.
The TIC said that when compared with the first five months of the record year of 2018, when 15,739 trucks had been sold to the end of May, sales are up by one per cent, or 161 trucks, showing that the heavy vehicle market is on track for a first half year sales record in 2022.
Continuing the trend for 2022, the Heavy Duty truck segment again led the way with sales growth over 2021 sales. The sector sold 1274 units, up a significant 21.3 per cent (or 224 trucks) over May 2021.
Year-to-date, 5322 HDs have been delivered, up 20.52 per cent (906 trucks) over this time last year.
The TIC said the Medium Duty segment also continued to perform well, just outselling the corresponding month in 2021 by four units, a 0.6 per cent increase.
“In total, 681 Medium trucks were delivered in May 2022,” it said.
“However, the year-to-date numbers look much better, due to strong sales over the first four months of this year. There were 2964 MD trucks delivered, up a very healthy 9.7 per cent (261 trucks) over the same period in 2021.”
Light Duty trucks were again well into positive territory; up 14.0 per cent for the month with 1329 sales in May 2022. This compares to 1166 sales for the same month in 2021.
In year-to-date figures, 5766 LD trucks have been delivered compared to 5250 in 2021, a gain of 9.8 per cent.
The TIC said Light Duty Van sales in 2022 were “really struggling.”
It said this was likely attributed to supply chain issues in Europe which is the manufacturing base for most van brands over 3.5-tonne GVM sold in Australia.
Van sales in May were down by 33.9 per cent over May 2021 with just 493 vans being delivered.
This takes the year-to-date 2022 van tally to 1848, down 962 vans (a drop of 34.2 per cent) over the result to the end of May 2021.
By Neil Dowling
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