The complicated situation for hauliers continues to translate into very limited purchases of new rolling stock. The semi-trailer market is recording serious losses. From the beginning of the year up to and including May, 7070 new semi-trailers were registered in Poland, down by as much as 33.4% year-on-year. The biggest losses are recorded by curtainsiders (3765 units, -37% year-on-year) and box trailers and reefers (1247 units, -54%), so their share in the sales mix has also fallen significantly. Such deep declines are reminiscent of the 2008-2009 crisis. The situation is similar in Germany, which is Europe’s largest market for semi-trailers. There, the year-on-year fall in sales reached 18% in May.
There is still deep pessimism in the aftermarket. Used semi-trailer sales are at a minimum and the stockpiles have grown significantly over the past few months. Typical semi-trailers for international transport, i.e. curtainsiders, reefers and container chassises, are beginning to backlog and the only sales of these relate to replacing the fleet with a newer one or replacing damaged vehicles. Limited demand can only be seen in construction tippers and boxes, which are used for domestic transport and are subject to natural replacement. Interest in cubic tippers, which have been in high demand for several years, has curiously fallen very sharply, which has also translated into an extraordinary drop in their market value.
The lack of demand obviously translates into a fall in transaction prices. Its pace is limited by the lack of motivation to buy through price, with the result that commodities are no longer lowering their offer prices as much. Over the last 12 months, curtainsiders (-21.2%) and reefers (-17.4%) have fallen the most, which only confirms the big problem with remarketing them at the moment.
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