MARKET COMMENT
Steady movement in July for local truck market
The truck market is showing some resilience in 2018 but economic factors continue to weigh on it
The truck market showed reasonable growth in July, with the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers SA describing increases as "encouraging gains". The medium commercial vehicle market increased by 15.90% at 701 units in July compared to the corresponding month in 2017. However, it still has some work to do to recover the year-to-date decline of 4.30% against the same period in 2017. Heavy commercial vehicles weighing between 8,501kg and 16,500kg were also up by 29.80% at 484 units in July. Mercedes-Benz, which still fails to report specific sales figures, saw an increase of 10.30% in the segment in contrast to its declines in the passenger car market. The year-to-date figure is up by the slimmest of margins at 0.60%, although here Mercedes’ sales are down 19.70% against the same period in 2017. Extra-heavy commercial vehicle sales showed a slight increase of 2.40% for the month, with Mercedes down 2.60% in spite of the recent arrival of the not-so-new Actros. There is good...
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