European trailer market: accelerating recovery from the COVID-19 impact
During the first half of this year, there was much doubt about how far the market for new trailer sales would recover from the pandemic. However, we were positively surprised during the summer with news of an accelerated recovery compared to what was envisaged, according to CLEAR and ING Bank’s reports.
With the pandemic restrictions, manufacturers reduced capacity. However, as vaccination programmes were accelerated, economies throughout Europe have recovered somewhat in recent months, leading to an increase in demand for new trailers.
Higher delivery times lead to a higher used trailers demand
As a consequence of the restrictions imposed, suppliers have not been able to replenish their stocks of the parts that are needed to build trailers and, with the resumption of demand, we have seen that there are just not enough parts to keep the pace with that demand.
With increasingly lengthy lead times for new trailers, transport operators have turned to either the used trailer market or to trailer hire companies for a solution in many cases.
Accelerating recovery
The market was highly impacted by the pandemic. According to CLEAR forecasts, 3 million new trailers were sold in 2018. (source: CLEAR report). However, because of the pandemic, trailer production fell by a third in 2020 compared to 2019, whilst registrations fell by a fifth. Nevertheless the situation is slowly improving, as the number of newly ordered trailers keeps rising.
In the years ahead of us, the European trailer fleet will grow moderately. ING Bank is a bit more cautious. It expects that after an eight percent market recovery this year, growth of sales will accelerate more in 2022. However, specific percentages are not given. (source: ING Bank report)
From crisis to boom
On the assumption that further new waves of COVID-19 are kept under control, CLEAR envisages 9.8% growth of trailer demand in 2021.
Also, it has to be noted that the market has turned from crisis into a boom in just three months, something which was never been seen before.
Another exceptional thing is that the market growth seems to be driven by the availability of parts. The shortage of chips and raw materials has led to all sorts of issues, leading to higher prices. This is also the case in the truck industry at present.
Keep your fleet moving with TIP
Headquartered in Amsterdam, TIP is one of the leading providers of both equipment and services within Europe and Canada. TIP specialises in providing the transportation and logistics sector with leasing, rental, maintenance and repairs through a wide selection of trailer equipment.
Whether you are already a TIP customer or not, you can benefit from our maintenance and repair expertise in all our workshops (more than 110).
We also offer a wide range of high quality second hand trailers and trucks across Europe and Canada.
For more information about the availability of trailers, please contact us or for information on our used trailers and trucks, visit www.tip-used.com/en-gb.
