Total Australian new truck sales for January 2025 were 2,786 units, falling short of setting a new January heavy vehicle sales record by 133 trucks.
That record still sits with January 2024 according to the Truck Industry Council who released data for the latest sales figures this week.
The result for January 2025 is the second best on record, despite all segments, except Medium Duty truck, recording a fall in sales when compared with January 2024 results.
The result for January was down 4.6 per cent on January 2024, but stronger than expected.
With sales at the back end of 2024 waning somewhat, it was anticipated that 2025 would continue that trend.
However, the year-on-year fall was much lower than expected.
While January 2025 saw a slight decline in Heavy Duty truck sales, the TIC noted that January 2024 deliveries were an all-time record for the HD segment.
Some 898 Heavy Duty trucks were sold in January, down on January 2024 sales by 49 trucks, or -5.2 per cent. Marking a solid start to 2025 for the Heavy truck segment and stronger than many in the industry had been forecasting.
As detailed above, the Medium Duty segment was the only part of the heavy vehicle market to outperform January 2024 sales, with 472 Medium truck deliveries for the month of January 2025, versus 439 trucks in January last year, a gain of 7.5 per cent.
This result is down 79 trucks, or 14 per cent, off the best ever January deliveries of 551 Medium trucks achieved in 2008.
However, as TIC has reported previously, the MD segment is a shrinking market, so it is unlikely that new Medium truck sales are going to rewrite the record books. Nonetheless, the Medium Truck segment is off to a strong start in 2025 with the best January sales seen since 2019, for a six year high.
Light Duty truck sales took the greatest hit in January, noticeably down and falling well short of January 2024 deliveries.
Sales in this segment in January 2023 set a new record, however with year-on-year falls in 2024 and again in 2025, the segment has started the year well down according to the TIC.
A total of 728 new light duty trucks were sold in January 2025, down 12.8 per cent on January 2024 and significantly down (-29 per cent) over January 2023. That equates to 107 less Light Duty truck sales compared to the same month last year and a fall of exactly 300 tucks when compared to January 2023 LD truck sales.
Last year saw a resurgence in Light Duty Van sales, culminating in a new record for the segment at year end 2024 and January 2025 has started with strong van sales. Officially 688 van sales were recorded for the month of January 2025, just ten vans short (-1.4 per cent) of January 2024, which was an all-time sales record for January van sales in Australia.
“As for the past two years, it is pleasing to see such a strong start to the year for new heavy vehicle sales in Australia,” said Tony McMullan CEO of Truck Industry Council.
“However, as I generally remark at this time of year, January and even February sales, are subject to fluctuations and some inconsistencies due to the transition of supplying trucks from one year to the next and the summer holiday period,” he continued.
“The relatively poor showing in the Light Truck segment could well be due to these factors. We will have a much better indication of how the market is tracking for the year at the end of the first quarter, once January, February and March numbers are in and the market has had a chance to normalise.
It is however, pleasing to see a strong start to truck and heavy van sales in 2025.”
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