News

The demand for new trucks in Europe is artificially high because operators are placing identical orders with two or more manufacturers at a time in order to hedge their bets with delivery times. According to new research from investment bank UBS, 63% of fleets with between 101 and 500 trucks have placed double orders. It estimates that 20% of overall European heavy truck demand is duplicated.

UBS believes the European truck market will peak in 2008 - having been driven by Eastern European  demand. It is predicting overall growth of 4% during 2008, followed by a drop of 7.5% during 2009. The picture in the UK suggests the market will experience a downturn during 2008. While UK truck sales are up by 58% during the first quarter of 2008, much of this growth can be attributed to late deliveries being carried over from 2007 and registered during 2008.

"We will not see a market of 67,000 again this year," says John Baker, marketing director at Mercedes-Benz UK. "Were that to happen, we would need to see the 58% increase continue throughout 2008, and that seems to be unlikely. "Our forecast is for an overall market of around 45,000 units for 2008."

However, the true impact of both the general economic downturn, and, more pertinently, the credit squeeze have yet to filter through to the economy at large. There is an almost inevitable time-lag effect, meaning that both issues are unlikely to show themselves in terms of truck market figures until probably  the third quarter of 2008. At this point, the true impact of the double-ordering referred to by UBS should also begin to make itself clear.