The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
John Deere leads field in tractor sales
John Deere remains the tractor brand of choice for UK farmers, with the green and yellow machines accounting for more than a quarter of all tractor sales.
The latest brand-specific figures for UK tractor sales from the Agricultural Engineers Association (AEA), which cover the 2020 year, reveal John Deere accounted for 26.5% of the 11,935 new tractors registered that year.
This is down slightly from the 2019 figures when the American company’s tractors made up 28.1% of all sales, which stood at 13,545 tractors.
AEA agricultural economist, Stephen Howarth, said: “As always, data is released after a oneyear delay due to competition law restrictions; figures for 2021 are due to be published in early 2023.”
The figures reveal the second most popular brand of tractor was New Holland, which represented 17.8% of sales – up slightly on the year before, when it held 17.1% of the market share.
The third most popular brand with 13.2% of market share was Massey Ferguson, followed by Case IH at 9.2% and Fendt at 7.5% – this is up from 12.3%, 8.9% and 6.8% respectively.
Valtra’s market share remained the same at 5.5% of sales, while Kubota and Mccormick enjoyed slight increases in market share to 6.6% and 0.9% – up from 6.5% and 0.8% respectively.
Claas’s market share dropped from 5.7% to 3.8%, while JCB’S share of the market fell to 1.6%, from 2.1% in 2019.
Italian firm Landini was the least popular brand accounting for 0.4% of sales in 2020, or 51 machines.
Meanwhile, figures released last week by the AEA reveal continued recovery in the Scottish tractor market last year following a Covid-induced slowdown.
Sales of new agricultural tractors over 50hp in Scotland were up 17.1% in 2021 to 1,466.
This accounted for 12.2% of total UK sales, which stood at 12,107, representing a 15.8% increase on 2020.
Sales increased in every region of the UK with the exception of Yorkshire and Humberside, where sales decreased by 0.9% to 757 tractors.