Even before the end of the first quarter, market conditions and fleet purchasing activity are coming together so well in 2018 that Mack Trucks VP of Marketing John Walsh summed things up with, “It’s a good time to be in the trucking industry,” at the Work Truck Show in Indianapolis.
Mack has revised its outlook upward again for the North American Class 8 market and is now expecting “in the neighborhood of 280,000 trucks will be sold”, Walsh said. “Good news in the economy is generally good news for trucking’’ he added.
In a telltale sign of higher consumer spending, “Inventory-to-sales ratio is at a three-year low” Walsh said. “That means product’s not sitting on the shelves — consumers basically are buying the products as soon as they hit the shelves,” he noted. “And that means they’ve got to restock the shelves, and they need trucks to get the products there.”
Growth in the U.S. gross domestic product for the year is now estimated at 2.8%, up from 2.2% last year. But one of the most encouraging and direct indicators for the Class 8 market Mack has observed is fleets lining up to buy new tractors.
“Order intake has been really strong now for several months,” Walsh said. “January and February were two of the largest order intake months ever in the history of the Class 8 truck market — so, really robust order activity.”
A positive freight environment, tight capacity in trucking and rising freight rates are helping to boost profitability for fleets and trucking companies in a market demanding more transport, Walsh explained, “and it’s all good news for those of us who sell Class 8 trucks.” In the construction segment of the Class 8 market, where Mack commands a dominant share of truck sales, there are plenty of signs of momentum.
“Construction spending last year reached an all-time high of $1.25 trillion, and contractors added 210,000 jobs, a 35% increase over 2016,” said Walsh. Again, with employment levels strong and mortgage rates low, housing starts are up; pricing on housing was up 7% last year and is expected to grow another 6% in 2018.
Still, there are some potential constraints in housing and construction. A tight labor market and rising materials costs — not to mention increased suggestion of trade wars between the U.S. and countries that have been supplying those materials — could put a cap on the expected growth to an extent.
“We’re keeping an eye on what I’ll call a potential dampening effect in this part of the economy due to the labor shortage — you know, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, they’re all very busy right now — as well as the rising cost of materials used in construction, like lumber.” Walsh said. “But all in all, we’re expecting the Class 8 market in construction to be very strong this year.”
Mack and its dealer network have made significant investments in the last several years to position the brand for growth. Since 2010, Walsh noted, Mack dealers have invested more than $600 million in facilities and staff, the result being 53% more service bays and over four times as many Mack Master Technicians as before.
The focus has been on reducing the amount of time that customers’ trucks spend in the shop, which Mack estimates can cost some $2,000 a day per truck, not accounting for the potential to lose customers due to trucks out of service. The company’s fleet management/ data analytics program isn’t just capturing fault codes off of trucks to support more predictive maintenance, noted Roy Horton, director of product strategy for Mack Trucks.
What is being done includes GuardDog Connect vehicle monitoring, OneCall service, new Mack Over-the-Air Updates, Certified Uptime Centers and more. “We’ve got live people who interact with our customers,” Horton said. “It’s a real person behind the scenes who’s talking with them – and helping them to manage the situation that they’re in – to the best outcome possible.
Source: http://www.fleetowner.com/economics/mack-its-good-time-be-trucking
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