Used truck market growth paints dissapointing picture in April

Easter Sunday might have fallen in March this year, but the month of April has turned out to be as disappointing as that moment when you realise all the chocolate eggs are gone.

Overall, views of the commercialmotor.com classifieds were down 9% in April compared with March which is reflected across the board with a large amount of negative returns. However, looking more deeply into the statistics reveals that while page views are down, users have remained almost identical throughout the month. With luck, that means that users arrived on the website, found what they needed, more quickly, and went off to ask about a listing. With enquiry levels also up last month, the data would suggest that was the scenario – buyers found their Easter eggs and went off to eat them all.

That has meant some large downturns in individual categories, starting with trailers which were down 21.7% in the month. Rigid trucks also underperformed, down 13.2%, while tractor units declined by 12.5%. Van listings enjoyed a bumper month, though, up 18.6%.

Among the individual body types, flatbed bodies had the best month of any category we track, with an increase of 21.2% throughout April. Other gains were made by curtainsiders (+11.6%) and hook-loaders (8.3%). There were other smaller increases for recovery trucks and insulated tippers, as well as beavertail and drawbar trailers. On the flipside, the three most popular body types all endured larger declines. The ‘tipper’ body type led the way as the most searched for item of stock during April, despite a 12.8% drop in overall listing views. Tankers found themselves in second position (-13.6%), ahead of crane vehicles, which suffered the largest drop inside the top 20 – down 25.9%. Skip wagons and mixer trucks didn’t perform much better, with 24.7% and 21.6%
drops, respectively.

With three stock items heavily linked to construction all taking a tumble, as well as falls for tipper grabs and block carriers, might we be seeing a downturn in the building trade? That’s bad news, as spring is typically a time for more interest and activity in this crucial sector as the warmer weather accelerates site work and the number of new projects breaking ground.

The most in-demand truck manufacturer is familiar reading, with Scania leading the pack, ahead of Volvo and DAF. All three brands were down on views compared with last month, but interestingly they were all almost exactly in line with the 9% drop overall. Scania, as the most searched for maker, had the most to lose and was down 9.7%, while Volvo managed a 9.5% drop. DAF came out on top of the three, but was still down 8.8%, Incidentally, third placed DAF had just shy of half the search volume that Scania trucks did this month, underlining the superiority the Scania brand has in the used market.

In fourth position, Mercedes-Benz also remained close to the overall level of decline, with a 10.1% drop, while MAN in fifth wasn’t so lucky and found itself down 21.5%.

Perhaps the most surprising change, though, was Iveco, taking sixth position on the list. A 1.4% drop for the Italian manufacturer was enough for it to leapfrog Renault Trucks, which suffered a 27.2% drop in listing views during April. Fewer Renault Truck classified listings ultimately played their part in this dramatic turn
of events.

Despite the surprising results among the manufacturers, it was largely business as usual and the status quo was very much maintained for the individual truck models, with the Volvo FH topping the charts as the most searched for truck, despite a 27.1% decrease in views. The Mercedes-Benz Actros came in second, down 23.5%, and the Scania S series, down 23.3%, completed the top three. The Volvo FMX was the only model in the top 10 to see a positive increase in searches, up 10.9%, while the Mercedes-Benz Unimog managed a more impressive 40.8% increase and the DAF CF a much more modest 7.6%.

Unsurprisingly, given its performance in the manufacturer rankings, the Renault Range T was the model with the largest drop in searches, down 35.1%. The Volvo FH, as previously mentioned, fell by 27.1% and the DAF LF had 24% fewer views than in March. The vast majority of the top 25 models all saw declines of between 10% and 15%.

Already, just a few days into May at the time of writing, we’re seeing an increase in traffic. Whether or not that continues to the end of the month is anybody’s guess.

- This article was first published in the 30 May issue of Commercial Motor.