German plants greatly reduce production output
Commercial Vehicle Market Continues to Decline
Frankfurt am Main, January 9, 2009. The commercial vehicle markets are now fully caught up in the maelstrom of the global recession. Domestic sales, production and exports were once again down sharply in December 2008. However, the high order backlog and the long delivery times at the beginning of the year ensured that 2008 as a whole was characterized by stable domestic sales and slight increases in production and exports.
As a result, commercial vehicle sales in full-year 2008 matched the high level of the previous year (335,000 units). Although van sales increased by one percent to 231,000 vehicles, sales of heavy-duty trucks amounted to 98,200 units, and were therefore almost two percent lower than in the boom year of 2007. In December, new vehicle registrations in Germany totaled 23,470 units (-7 percent). Domestic orders continue to show a marked decline. For the year as a whole, orders of light-duty vehicles were down by 12 percent while those in the heavy-duty segment decreased by 46 percent.
Production still increased by two percent in 2008, although van output remained unchanged from the previous year. Due to a very high order backlog at the beginning of the year, production of heavy-duty vehicles still managed to increase by five percent to reach a new all-time high. By contrast, German plants had to reduce output by 34 percent in December.
During the year as a whole, exports by German commercial vehicle manufacturers still grew by two percent to reach the record result of 369,500 units. However, the global economic downturn in the second half of the year caused exports to decline by 26 percent in December, to 19,400 units.