Data courtesy of SMMT (www.smmt.co.uk)The increases come on the heels of a 10% increase in van registrations in September, and October’s data show that as expected (by SMMT), truck registrations have turned around in October and are now positive for the year to-date — although they remain lower on a rolling year basis.

“Both the van and truck markets showed great strength in October boosting the sector by 27.3% and taking the 2013 growth rate to almost 10%,” said Nigel Base, SMMT Commercial Vehicle Manager. “We anticipated this late strength in the truck market and SMMT has raised its forecast for van registrations to 264,100 a 10.2% rise on last year.”

What’s hot, and what’s not?

As always, the increase in registrations was not evenly dividend across the different weight categories and types of CV. In the van market, the biggest percentage increase was in the 2.0-2.5t category, where sales rose by 45% from 2,417 in October 2012 to 3,513 in October 2013.

However, the biggest increase by far in volume terms was in the 2.5t – 3.5t market (Transit-sized vans), where sales rose by 32% from 10,187 in October 2012 to 13,447 in October 2013. This increase suggests that big fleet operators are proceeding with fleet renewal plans and that other big buyers — such as van hire companies — are also experiencing strong demand for new vans.

Losers in the van category include sub-2.0t vans, where sales fell by 3.3% from 2,718 to 2,629. I believe that this is partly because there simply are not very many sub-2.0t vans anymore — car-derived vans like the Fiesta and Corsa vans are still under 2t, as is the pint-sized Citroën Nemo and its rebadged siblings, but there aren’t really any others anymore, and they form a definite minority market.

In the truck categories, I was interested to see a 41.7% surge in rigids between 3.5t and 6.0t (see my story on this topic yesterday), while sales of rigds over 16t were up by 34%, suggesting that retail, food distribution and construction companies — the main users for this class of vehicle — are feeling more confident about the economy.

Finally, sales of 3-axle artics were up by 36.6% in October, compared to the same period last year, suggesting that operators are biting the bullet and buying into Euro 6 before they are forced to, and that they can see healthy forward demand for their fleets’ services.

All in all, an encouraging picture, if it can be sustained.