As we enter the final quarter the Australian truck and heavy commercial market has continued its sales slide finishing September with a drop of just over 500 units or 13.3 per cent compared with the figures from this time last year.
A total of 3362 trucks and vans over 3.5 tonnes were registered in September compared with 3878 for the same month last year and the year to date tally for the first nine months is at 29,233, a drop of 4,494 units on the same period in 2025, which also represents a 13.3 per cent drop year on year.
Isuzu was the market leader overall, but despite holding a vice like 25.7 per cent share of the market overall with 863 trucks registered for the brand, a tally that was very nearly three times more than the sales total for second place maker, Hino.
Hino’s ongoing supply woes meant it sold just 286 trucks for the month taking 8.5 per cent of the market, and placing it just 26 trucks ahead of third place brand Fuso with 260 registrations or 7.7 per cent market share.
Heavy duty king Kenworth finished fourth overall falling just 2 units short of beating Fuso, with the Paccar brand registering 248 trucks, all but one of them being heavy duty models, underlining another outstanding performance by the locally assembled brand.
Volvo captured fifth with 220 truck registrations for the month, 13 of them in the medium sector and the remaining 207 being heavy models. Scania posted a very respectable sixth outright with 119 heavy duty trucks to pip Iveco by just one unit overall, with that brand’s tally being spread across all sectors.
Fiat finished the month in eighth place with 102 units, all of them light duty models, while Mercedes-Benz was ninth with 88 units and Mack completed the top ten with 72 units, all heavy duty models.
As mentioned earlier, Kenworth topped heavy duty again streeting nearest rival Volvo by 39 trucks and further cementing its hold on another heavy duty crown overall this year. Kenworth has sold 1936 heavy duty models so far this year, 290 units ahead of Volvo with 1646 heavy duty regos, just three months before the year’s sales totals are closed off.
Isuzu was again third placed in the heavy sector with 136 registrations, 17 units ahead of Scania in fourth with 118 and Hino in fifth with 84 trucks. Hino is clearly reaping the rewards of its plan to sell its smaller heavy models into the top of the medium market, which would normally have been served by the brand’s 500 series models, models that are in short supply until new models arrive on our roads in early 2027.
Behind them was Mack with 72, UD with 60, Fuso with 46 and Mercedes with 43, while DAF rounded the top ten in heavies with 38 trucks.
Overall the heavy sector 1124 trucks for the month, a drop of 97 units or 7.9 per cent compared with September last year when there were 1221 heavy duty models sold. Year to date heavy duty has seen 9733 registrations, down 7.8 per cent this year compared with the first nine months last year.
Medium duty was also down on its 2025 numbers with a total of 457 trucks registered in the sector, a drop of 10 per cent on last September’s tally of 508 trucks.
Isuzu registered 299 trucks for the month, which was a rise of 17.7 per cent on its result this time last year, bucking the trend, but clearly benefitting from rival Hino’s short supplies of 500 Series models.
Having said that, Hino had a pretty meagre result all things considered in medium duty, moving just 25 units for the month, placing it third behind Archion joint venture partner and local rival Fuso, which was second registering 76 trucks in the sector for the month.
Isuzu’s result gave it a massive 65.4 per cent share in the sector, while Fuso enjoyed a 16.6 per cent slice of the sector and Hino just 5.5 per cent.
Mercedes was next best in the segment with 13 registrations, just ahead of Volvo in 12 and Hyundai on 11. Iveco was seventh with seven registrations, ahead of MAN with six, UD with four and Foton with two.
Light duty suffered a significant 19.7 per cent fall in sales volume compared with September last , registering a total of 1029 trucks down from the 1283 this time in 2025.
The significant drop in light duty numbers was reflected across most brands with segment leader Isuzu dropping 232 units on its 2025 monthly result to record 428 light duty regos. Despite the big drop in volume, the market leader still dominated the sector capturing a 41.6 per cent share.
Hino was second with 177 registrations for 17.2 per cent share, while Fuso adopted its traditional third place in the segment with 138 registrations and 13.4 per cent share.
Fiat had another strong showing in light duty selling 102 of its Ducato based cab chassis models to be fourth in the sector, heading fellow Italian brand Iveco by six units.
Mercedes was sixth with 32 units in light duty, two ahead of the all electric Foton Mobility, which registered 30 and the only other brand in double figures. LDV was eighth with nine , Hyundai with six and Renault rounded the top ten with four units.
The heavy van sector also saw a significant drop down 13.1 per cent year on year, registering 752 vans for the month, compared with 866 in September 2025.
Mercedes-Benz topped the van sector as per normal with 207 registrations, taking 27.5 per cent share, to just topple its Chinese rival LDV , which was only five units behind with 202 registrations, while Ford was third a long way back with 111 vans registered in September.
Fiat finished back in fourth with 78, VW fifth with 69 and Renault 19 behind on 50. Iveco was the only other brand on the chart with 32 for the month.
With sales figures continuing to fall. the final three months of the year promise to deliver more bad news with only the prospect of better stock postion for Hino, a new Fuso distributor and perhaps some more Chinese bands, some of which still don’t register their sales with the Truck Industry Council. holding some positivity in 2027
