Commercial Vehicles: Domestic Demand Continues to Weaken – Very Steep Decline in Exports and Production
Frankfurt am Main, March 5, 2009. The commercial vehicle markets continued to feel the full impact of the global recession in February. Demand - especially foreign demand for heavy-duty commercial vehicles - has been in free fall for months. Following a drop of 76 percent in January, orders from abroad for commercial vehicles with GVWs over 6 tons even plummeted 95 percent in February. In the vans sector, orders from foreign buyers were down 55 percent from the level recorded in February 2008.
The domestic market also continues to be very disappointing. Compared to the volumes recorded for the same month in 2008, customer orders in February for heavy-duty vehicles and vans once again decreased, this time by 61 percent and 8 percent respectively. Matthias Wissmann, President of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA): "We are certainly facing a decline in demand that is more dramatic than anything we have seen in the commercial vehicle business for decades. Given this enormously difficult situation, politicians should be doing everything they can to ensure that the freight-forwarding and transport sector is not subjected to even more burdens. The toll increase of January 1, 2009, was thus entirely inappropriate and came at the wrong time."
As a result of the worldwide economic downturn, exports are falling to lower and lower levels. Compared to the figures for the same month in 2008, exports of commercial vehicles with GVWs up to 6 tons were down 71 percent in February and there was a 66-percent decrease in heavy-duty commercial vehicle exports. The resulting combined decreases for January and February of this year were 66 percent in the segment for trucks weighing up to 6 tons and 60 percent for trucks over 6 tons.
The domestic market also was hit hard, with German commercial vehicle manufacturers posting sharply lower sales in February. Registrations of new commercial vehicles in Germany fell 32 percent, confirming the continuing weakness of the domestic economy. At 12,030 units, new registrations for vans were down 29 percent from the February 2008 level, while sales in the heavy-duty segment over 6 tons GVW even decreased by 40 percent.
In response to the very poor foreign business, the German manufacturers of vans and heavy-duty trucks also significantly reduced production in February. Overall, their plants in Germany cut production of vehicles with GVWs up to 6 tons by 65 percent and built 68 percent fewer vehicles over 6 tons. In the first two months of 2009 the companies had to reduce their truck production to 37,000 units (-57 percent).
