All About Trucks
First of all, the continual flourishing sales of heavy-duty trucks are beyond the expectation of many analysts. Undoubtedly, heavy-duty trucks became the largest highlight in the market for motor vehicles during the first quarter, their sales added up to 167,232 sets with a year-on-year growth rate of 58.70 percent, thus making trucks the type with the largest growth margin in the respective markets for the 4 major types of motor vehicles and the only type having seen an increase of market shares. During the first quarter, altogether 29,953 heavy-duty trucks were sold with a growth rate of 72.78 percent year on year.
During the first quarter, altogether 62,085 semi-trailer towing vehicles were sold and the year-on-year growth rate amounted to 46.85 percent, making semi-trailer towing vehicles a type with the lowest growth rate of distribution among three types of heavy-duty trucks. The main reasons include that the demands for such a type of heavy-duty trucks increased too rapidly last year and that the base was excessively large. In the market for semi-trailer towing vehicles, the growth rate and proportion of the demands for such series of quasi-towing vehicles with a total mass larger than 25 tons and no more than 40 tons are the largest. It can be said that any enterprise seizing the market for trucks falling into those series of heavy-duty trucks with such a tonnage will grasp the market for semi-towing vehicles as a whole.
In general, during the first quarter of 2008, the nationwide distributions of heavy-duty trucks presented a characteristic of “rising rapidly”, which was certainly related to such factors concerning the economic construction as that greater efforts were made on the transportation of coal for purpose of electricity power generation and that a lot of projects will be launched between February and May each year. Various projects under construction, including the project at Caofeidian in the periphery of Tangshan, the Project of Jingtang Port, the construction project of the Iron and Steel Plant of Shougang Jingtang United Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., and the preliminary project of land development at a new seashore district, have driven the blooming demands in the market for heavy-duty trucks during the first quarter.
Secondly, the charging policy of charging by weight was spread and put into practice. By the end of 2007, a system of charging by weight had been put in practice on expressways more than 20 provinces and municipalities and the proportion of the mileage of expressways on which a system of charging by weight was implemented amounted to 88 percent of the total mileage of all expressways. It can be said that the system of charging by weight can radically promote the sale of heavy-duty trucks in a long run and have “revolutionary” influences on the market for heavy-duty trucks.
During the first quarter of the year, medium duty trucks ranked the lowest among all the four major types of trucks in terms of the growth rate in the market; and altogether 56,167 medium trucks were sold with a small-scale year-on-year growth margin of 6.09 percent while the market shares for medium trucking decreased by 1.69 percentage points. Altogether 32,314 medium duty trucks for sale with a growth margin of 12.15 percent during the first quarter of the year. In the market for medium trucks, the growth margin for demands for such trucks amounted to as high as 146.77 percent though the proportion of those series of medium trucks with a total gross mass larger than 12 tons but no more than 14 tons; such a phenomenon shows substantially that due to the influence of operating costs, certain medium trucks with a large tonnage begin to receive favors in the market this year.
During the first quarter of the year, the market for light duty trucks for sale maintained a fairly rapid growth rate. Certain experts hold that at the beginning of 2008, various manufacturers of light duty trucks made adjustments to prices of their products, the prices of respective types were raised by more than RMB3, 000 yuan and less than RMB3, 500 yuan, and clients’ expectation that vehicle prices will continue to rise in the future has resulted in the fact that dealers stock up while end users conduct scare buying.
