Frans Cloete Truck Quotations

The South African truck market, coming off the back of an outstanding 2005 annual result, has continued to achieve impressive monthly returns in both December and January, notwithstanding the fact that these two months normally deliver the lowest total new vehicle sales volumes of the entire calendar year. The main driver of January's excellent result was a strong surge in HCV segment sales, with this grouping of predominantly distribution trade vehicles now returning to market share levels above 20% for the first time in nearly half a decade.

The major objective of the truck supply industry at the present time is focused on the provision of a satisfactory level of support infrastructure to ensure that the vehicles required by operators can be processed for delivery in the shortest possible time, and are then also fully supported in terms of parts, service and repairs once they have entered service.

While the MCV return equals the second-best ever monthly result for this segment achieved in May 2005, it was only 40 units below the outright record of 1 216 units set in June, and sustains the tremendous growth spurt being exhibited by this vehicle classification. In their own right, the HCV and EHCV segment results both set new records for these categories since NAAMSA redefined its truck market segmentation parameters at the beginning of 2004.

The year 2005 was truly memorable for participants in the South African truck market. Sales volumes have consistently edged ahead of the most optimistic initial forecasts, and once the trend of strong growth had been established early in the year, the market consistently delivered near-record monthly performances. As it turned out, the year-on-year growth of 31,7% recorded this year completely eclipsed the 27,5% achievement which had, understandably, excited participants at the end of 2004.