{"id":5491,"date":"2013-11-06T15:26:36","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T15:26:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/?p=5491"},"modified":"2014-11-06T15:27:55","modified_gmt":"2014-11-06T15:27:55","slug":"van-sales-soar-26-3-in-october-smmt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/archives\/5491","title":{"rendered":"Van sales soar 26.3% in October – SMMT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Van registrations rose by an impressive 26.3% in October, taking the total increase for the year-to-date to 11%, according to the latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).<\/p>\n

The figures mean that the overall commercial vehicle market, including trucks, is up by 9.8% this year, compared to the same period last year:<\/p>\n

UK van and truck registrations: 2013 and % change on 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nOctober<\/strong><\/td>\n% change<\/strong><\/td>\nYear-to-date<\/strong><\/td>\n% change<\/strong><\/td>\nRolling year<\/strong><\/td>\n% change<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Vans<\/strong><\/td>\n22,473<\/td>\n26.3%<\/td>\n227,477<\/td>\n11.0%<\/td>\n262,257<\/td>\n6.6%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Trucks<\/strong><\/td>\n5,105<\/td>\n32.0%<\/td>\n39,457<\/td>\n3.2%<\/td>\n46,921<\/td>\n-0.9%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Total<\/strong><\/td>\n27,578<\/td>\n27.3%<\/td>\n266,934<\/td>\n9.8%<\/td>\n309,178<\/td>\n5.4%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Data courtesy of SMMT (www.smmt.co.uk<\/a>)<\/em>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.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What’s hot, and what’s not?<\/b><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> — are also experiencing strong demand for new vans.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0Citro\u00ebn Nemo and its rebadged siblings, but there aren’t really any others anymore, and they form a definite minority market.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>), 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

All in all, an encouraging picture, if it can be sustained.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest SMMT figures show that van registrations rose by 26.3% last month, taking the total increase for the year to date to 11%, compared to the same period last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[310,145,13],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5491"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5491"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6823,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5491\/revisions\/6823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}