The August truck and heavy commercial sales data tells a story of a diminishing market with dwindling sales continuing to cause some angst in the market, despite the arrival of several newcomers.
The August figures show that the industry registered 2989 trucks and heavy vans for the month, down 17.8 per cent or 648 units on the sales figures from August 2025.
The sales falls add to the results from previous months this year which sees the year’s YTD sales figures at 25871 for the first eight months compared with 29849 for the same period last yer a drop of 3978 units or 13.3 per cent.
Evert sector from vans through light duty, medium duty and heavy duty were down on the same month last year with no segment avoiding the sales hit.\
Despite continuing as market leader Isuzu’s total of 759 registrations in August was down 25.2 per cent or 256 units on its August 2025 monthly result last year but the maker till managed to capture a quarter of the total truck market holding a 25.4 per cent share of the overall truck sales in August.
Hino slipped to third overall coming in with 211 registrations, 34 units behind rival Fuso as Hino is really starting to feel the pain of its lack of supply from the Japanese factories. In fact Hino finished just one truck ahead of fourth placed maker and heavy sector leader Kenworth with 210 registrations. The Paccar brand’s result was based entirely on heavy sales so it underline’s its strength as well as Hino’s vulnerability.
Volvo had a reasonably pleasing monthly result, registering 198 trucks in August. That result was 23 trucks up on its result in the same month last year while Kenworth dropped 55 registrations for the same month.
Behind Volvo in sixth in the overall total market was Mercedes-Benz with 98 units spread across all sectors, while Scania was seventh with 93 units, all of them in heavy duty while Iveco was in eighth with 84 units, just ahead of UD with 77 and DAF rounding out the top ten with 51 trucks for the month.
In heavy duty, as we mentioned Kenworth dropped sales year on year to 210 for the month but still led the flagship sector, edging out Volvo with 187 heavy units for the month, while Isuzu took third with 129 in the segment. Behind them was Scania with 93 in fourth, Mack with 67, Mercedes and UD both with 65 heavies, while Hino was eight with 64 trucks, ahead of DAF with 51 and Fuso rounding out the top ten in the sector with 48 trucks.
Overall heavy duty was down just 20 units on August last year or just 1.9 pr cent on the 2025 results.
In medium duty Isuzu ruled the roost leading the sector with 241 trucks, which equated to a 59.1 per cent share of the medium segment, but was in actual fact a drop of just nine units on its August 2025 result.
Hino had a dismal month selling just 16 trucks in medium duty, barely outpointing UD with 12 trucks and Volvo with 11.
Fuso was second in the sector with 81 registrations while Iveco was a distant third with 20 registrations putting it front of Hino for the first time in many years in the medium market. Hyundai finished seventh in medium selling eight trucks, as did Foton (ICE models), while Mercedes was ninth in medium with four trucks while DAF was the only other brand on the score sheets in the segment with three registrations.
The light duty sector was down 341 units or 28.6 per cent on the August 25 result with 849 trucks registered compared with 1190 this time last year.
Isuzu was the leader of the sector holding 45.8 per cnet of the segment with 389 registrations for the month. This compared with 611 in the same month last year. Hino was second overall with 131 trucks, just ahead of Fuso with 116.
The Japanese trio was well ahead of fourth placed Fiat , which registered 65 light duty trucks, with Iveco next best on 38 , followed by LDV with 30 , Mercedes with 27 and Foton Mobility (BEV) with 21. Renault was next best with 15 registrations to be ninth while Ford was tenth in light duty with six equal with Foton (ICE) and Hyundai with five.
In vans sales were down 18.2 per cent or 151 units year on year with Mercedes Benz leading the pack with 239 Sprinter sales taking 35.4 per cent of the van sector and well ahead of Chinese rival LDV which registered 148 of its Deliver 9 machines. This time last year Ford beat LDV 153 to 138 vans, but last month the Ford Transit large van slipped to 81 registrations, just six units ahead of Fiat’s Ducato with 75.
Volkswagen was fourth with a total of 70 Crafter vans, while Renault was next best with 46 and Iveco registering a paltry 15 of its once hugely popular Daily vans.
With four month to run in this year’s sales calendar the industry is likely to be well behind hoped totals by the time the scores are settled on 30 December.
