North American Class 8 orders for April dropped 12,000 units from March numbers – the largest month-over-month drop since 2011.
While the drop was expected, truck orders still reached 34,700 units for the month – a 50 percent increase over April 2017.
“To put the April results into perspective, while we saw a nearly 12,000 unit drop from March, the figure is still above the average month for Q4 of last year,” says Jonathan Starks, FTR chief intelligence officer. “This remains a very elevated market.”
Demand for trucks remains at record levels as fleets attempt to add capacity as fast as possible. North American Class 8 orders for the past twelve months total 368,000 units, according to FTR.
“These order levels will continue to put pressure on the OEMs and suppliers to increase production and output,” Starks says. “The market will stay red-hot into 2019. The question remains: how hot can they run?”
