CV Registrations Up 4.1% in 2018

At the end of June, the European Automobile Association released their registration figures for Commercial Vehicles for May and the first five months of the year. Commercial Tyre Business dived deeper into the statistics to give its readers further insights.

The end of May 2018 saw registrations of new commercial vehicles in the EU grow modestly (+3.3%) in comparison to the strong performance that the territory saw in April, with 212,122 units being registered in total. Demand was sustained by the van and bus segments; this is despite the fact that truck sales declined in the month. Two European markets which experienced particularly sharp growth were the Spanish and French as they obtained +8.4% and +2.1% growth, respectively, with the other major European markets remaining more or less stable in comparison to last year’s performance

Up until now in 2018, EU demand for new commercial vehicles has seen an increase by 4.1%, with positive figures being posted for four out of the first five months of the year as new registrations totalled more than one million units over the same period in 2017. Spain recorded double-digit growth figures (+11.4%), followed by France (+5.5%), Italy (+3.0%) and Germany (+2.9%). In other markets, demand for commercial vehicles decreased, with the United Kingdom posting a 2.6% decline over the same period.

Moving onto the light commercial vehicle segment, registrations grew by 4.3% during the month, as most major EU markets performed well, except for Italy (-2.0%). Spain (+9.3%), Germany (+2.4%), the United Kingdom (+2.4%) and France (+1.8%) all had increased demand for vans in the period. This surge in demand was represented by 176,545 new vans being registered across the European Union.

Looking at 2018 as a whole, the demand for new vans swelled by 4.3%, thus representing 857,431 vehicles. Growth was reported in Spain (+11.7%), France (+5.3%), Germany (+4.8%) and Italy (+1.1%), whilst demand for vans in the United Kingdom, has however, fallen by 1.4% so far this year.

For heavy commercial vehicles, relating to vehicles that weight 16 tonnes and over, May’s registrations saw a market consolidation of 2.4%, translating to 26,212 units. On the whole, results fluctuated over the major EU markets. This can be illustrated by heavy-truck sales increasing in Italy (+13.8%), Spain (+4.7%) and France (+4.2%), whilst synchronously declining in the UK (-22.3%) and Germany (-4.7%).

After five months of 2018, the picture in the EU for the demand of heavy commercial vehicles remained rosy with 4.2% growth being posted and 132,188 new heavy trucks being registered. The Italian (+17.9%), French (+9.8%) and Spanish (+9.2%) markets reported the strongest improvements over this period, with demand once again falling in the United Kingdom at a rate of -10.2% and -1.3% in Germany.

New medium and heavy commercial vehicles referring to units of over 3.5 tonnes posted a slight decline of -2.2% in May, as 32,170 new trucks were registered in the European Union during the month. Despite the fact that demand declined in the UK (-14.4%) and Germany (-6.5%), growth was reported in the other major EU markets, with Italy providing particularly positive results of +15.0%.

Figures for the new medium and heavy commercial vehicle sector from January to May 2018 show that EU demand for new trucks increased slightly by 3.5%, counting 160,793 units. Italy once again led the way with +15.0% growth, whilst Spain and France simultaneously performed well with +9.2% and +7.9% growth respectively. Nevertheless, following the trend seen in May registrations did fall in the United Kingdom (-8.6%) and Germany (-1.6%) for the year as a whole.

Lastly, the results for May 2018 show that demand for buses and coaches surged again in May by +2.9% after experiencing a decline in April. Taken together this was represented by 3,407 new buses and coaches being registered, but results varied over the five major EU markets. This could be seen by the fact that registrations fell in Germany by -28.0%, the United Kingdom by ‐10.3% and finally Spain by -6.9%. In more positive news Italy reported a surge of sales that represented a +29.2% increase year on year, with France (+19.3%) posting highly favourable results.

Analysing the entire of 2018 is a bit different, as the EU bus and coach registrations were slightly lower than one year ago (-0.5%), counting 16,759 new vehicles. This can be exemplified by demand increasing in Italy (+16.0%) and Spain (+8.1%), whilst registrations synchronously falling in the UK (-15.7%), Germany (-6.6%) and France (-5.2%).