A positive sign?

HARD ON THE HEELS OF THE trans-Tasman travel bubble being conf irmed by the Government, came positive signs in New Zealand’s new truck and trailer markets. Maybe, just maybe, the industry is returning to some semblance of pre-COVID 19 normality.

The March Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency statistics on new truck registrations (4.5 tonnes to maximum GVM) showed a promising upturn.

Not only was the 503-truck total healthily up on February (321) – and on March last year (347)….

It also improved on the 495 registrations back in March 2019 – a time when COVID 19 was still many months away from even entering our vocabulary. And that has made this March performance a new alltime record for the month.

The ravages of COVID were still felt though, with 2021’s 1119 first quarter sales: While they amounted to a 7.08% improvement on Q1 last year, they still fell way short of 2019’s 1300. (That’s almost 14% behind the benchmark first quarter).

The official NZTA stats show that the heavy trailer market also lifted in March – the 131 registrations were significantly up on the previous month (with

105 registrations) and on March last year (when just 91 trailers were registered). On the other hand, it was still well behind the 153 registrations in March 2019.

Year-to-date, the 337 trailer registrations to the end of March were, similarly, 34 behind 2019’s Q1 total, but 27 up on last year’s tally.

In the overall 4.5t-maximum GVM truck market, Isuzu (220/104) reclaimed the top spot from FUSO (210/84) – for the month and the year so far.

However, the Q1 totals show that the longtime NZ market No. 1 has given up some of its market share to FUSO – Isuzu now holding a 19.7% share, compared to FUSO’s 18.8%. Their figures last year were 23.8% and 16.5% respectively.

The next three in the YTD standings – Hino (159/73), Kenworth (69/28) and Volvo (66/29) – retained their February positions, while Iveco (65/42)