New commercial vehicle registrations for GVW 3-8 vehicles for the first half of the 2015 calendar year remain strong, according to the "Quarterly Commercial Vehicle Report." The information was compiled by IHS Automotive/Polk, a subsidiary of IHS Inc.
There were 350,837 commercial units registered in the period, an increase of 12.1% from the first half of the 2014 calendar year. "When compared to previous calendar years, the first half of the 2015 calendar year continues the steady improvement seen since the 2010 calendar year when the recovery started," says IHS Automotive.
New registrations in the first six months of the 2015 calendar were the fourth best since the 2000 calendar year. The record? During the first half of 2006, more than 412,000 units were registered.
The news for commercial tire dealers was particularly good. The strength of new registrations was in GVW 8 vehicles; they were up 20.2% from the same period in the 2014 calendar year. Next were GVW 7 and GVW 3 vehicle registrations, which were up 11.4% and 9.7%, respectively.
Breaking down the GVW 8 data even further, the performance of large fleets, those operating more than 500 vehicles, was significant.
"During the first half of the 2015 calendar year, new registrations of GVW 8 vehicles by large fleets were up 23.7%, and these large fleets accounted for 49.3% of GVW 8 new registrations versus 47.8% during the first six months of the 2014 calendar year," says IHS Automotive.
Between the two of them, the Freightliner (35.5%) and Kenworth (15%) brands accounted for half of the GVW 8 registrations.
