U.S. trailer net orders for January were 17,900 units, a 37% decline from a year ago and 37% below December, according to FTR.
In spite of orders being under 20,000 units, they met FTR expectations for a falloff in activity after four consecutive months of strong trailer orders. Much of the decline was due to dry van orders being the lowest they have been since May 2015, along with weak flatbed orders for the month. Refrigerated van orders were at a reasonable level for January, up 33% from December.
Conversely to orders, overall trailer build was up for January, albeit marginally at a 3% increase, and impacted, primarily, by an improvement in dry van production with some added numbers for flatbed trailers as well. Most other trailer segments showed weaker m/m production. The tank trailer segment remains weak with dump trailers remaining at a steady level.
Don Ake, FTR Vice President of Commercial Vehicles, commented, “Normally this would be a poor order month for January, but these are far from normal circumstances. Orders averaged over 33,000 for the previous four months, so a pullback of this magnitude was totally expected. Most large fleets have their orders in for the first half of the year, there are not many open build slots left.
“Backlogs for vans are very robust, so, even if there are several weak order months, production should hold steady the first half of 2016. Production this January was the same as January 2015. However, last year the market was on the upswing, and this year it is cooling off somewhat. Trailer production is expected to outpace truck production for the next several months.”
To contact FTR, send an email to [email protected] or call (888) 988-1699 ext. 1.