Sales and Production of Commercial Vehicles Remain Weak
New Orders Received Suggest Slight Stabilization
Frankfurt am Main, November 6, 2009. The German market for commercial vehicles declined by 27 percent in October. As a result, 29 percent fewer vehicles have been sold overall in Germany since the beginning of the year versus the year-ago period. The decline was less pronounced with vans (-26 percent) than it was with heavy-duty vehicles over 6 tons (-39 percent)
Domestic new orders received in October were 22 percent below the year-ago volume, with vans suffering a drop of 27 percent. The heavy-duty vehicle segment recorded a 13 percent increase in orders, but orders were also extremely weak one year ago. "The sales crisis on the German market is not over," stressed Matthias Wissmann, President of the German Association of the Automobile Industry (VDA). "However, the domestic market is slowly beginning to recover - although this recovery is currently at a very low level."
Orders from abroad have stabilized further and are now only 2 percent below the level of the previous year. Although the segment over 6 tons has declined by 19 percent, new orders received for vans exceeded the previous year's extraordinarily low figure by 5 percent.
Reflecting the growth in demand, seasonally corrected exports by German van manufacturers increased further in October (+9 percent), but were still 30 percent lower versus the year-ago period. Exports of commercial vehicles over 6 tons even trailed the previous year's result by 75 percent. Exports have declined by nearly two-thirds over the course of the year so far.
The German plants continued to suffer from an underutilization of production capacity in October. The manufacturers produced around 24,900 units, or 44 percent fewer commercial vehicles than in the year-ago period. Their production has declined by 57 percent since the start of the year. Similar to the developments on the export market, production of commercial vehicles over 6 tons had to be decreased more sharply than the production of vans (-67 percent compared to 51 percent).
