China’s CV Truck Market Softening; Bus Markets Flat

While not impacting each commercial vehicle segment every year, structural changes within China’s CV market are expected to exert downward pressure through 2022, according to ACT and China’s State Information Center (SIC).

The OUTLOOK includes an overview of the China economy and a review and forecast of China’s heavy and medium duty truck and bus markets, as well as analysis of OEM market shares within China.

“2018 is the start of a continuously down market through 2022, with many forces, including modal shifts and technology advances, acting to provide downward pressure,” said Robert Perkins, Senior Global Business Consultant at ACT Research. He continued, “That said, the downward pressure won’t apply to all subgroups every year. For example, dump truck demand is expected to be up substantially in 2018, due to the NSIII vehicle replacement requirements.”

According to Perkins, “ACT Research anticipates that, in the next five years, policies regarding commercial vehicles in China will focus on being green and being safe.” He cautioned, “While this will promote product updates and technology shifts, they should not cause the large market fluctuations we experienced in 2016 and 2017.”

When asked about trade relations, Perkins responded, “Both China’s imports and exports grew in Q3’18, and any impact of the current China-US trade conflict has not yet impacted current data. We expect any impact of trade to be better understood once we see actual data in the early part of 2019.”

SIC is affiliated with the National Development and Reform Commission of China and is engaged in research on the macro-economy, key industries and information technology.

Category: General Update, News