China’s CV Truck Market Softening; Bus Markets Flat

“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 akin to what was experienced in 2016 and 2017.”

When asked about trade relations, Perkins responded, “Both China’s imports and exports grew in Q2’18, 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 later this year.”