The Italian truck and towed vehicles segments have both shown increases in March, giving sustained cause for optimism. Buses, on the other hand saw a double-dip fall in the latest figures released by the Associazione Nazionale Filiera Industria Automobilistica (ANIFA).
Particularly Strong Showing for Towed Vehicles in March
In March 2022, 2,367 new trucks were registered - a 0.9% increase on the 2,346 trucks registered in March 2021.
Towed vehicles did better still with 1,697 new registrations, which was 23% higher than the 1,380 towed vehicles registered in March 2021. Breaking the statistics down further there were 132 trailers and 1,248 semi-trailers, making for increases of 13.6 and 24%respectively, on the year before.
Looking to the completed first quarter, truck registrations rose by 0.5% on the first quarter of 2021, with 6,754 registrations, against 6,723 in 2021. The North West and North East showed the largest growth with 4.6 and 2.9% increases respectively, while the South and the Islands fell by 2.4% and the central region fell by 4.9%
Towed vehicles in the first quarter saw a double-digit 12.4% increase, with 4,306 new registrations against 3,831 for the first quarter of 2021. Semi-trailers made up the lion’s share of those registrations with 3,941 against 3,483 in 2021, which was a 13.1% improvement. The central region saw the strongest growth in the first quarter, with a 37.2% bounce, while the North West and North East had a healthy quarter with 23.6 and 15.6% growth respectively. The only region to suffer a decline was the South and the Islands, which recorded an 8.5% decrease.
The picture is noticeably different for buses. There were 233 registrations in March. This was 29.2% below the 329 bus registrations for March 2021. The first quarter for 2022 is below 2021 levels, with 819 buses registered in the first quarter, against 971 units for 2021, a decrease of 15.7%. The North West bucked the trend and saw a 90.7% increase during the first quarter, while the North East also saw growth with a 13.6% increase, while the central region and the South and the Islands saw a 37.9 and 38.2% drop respectively.
