A Class 6 Isuzu truck at a past industry trade show. Isuzu’s 1,000 vehicles sold were the most in Class 4 for June. (John Sommers II for Transport Topics)
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U.S. medium-duty truck sales in June lost more ground sequentially and when compared with the prior year, according to data from Wards Intelligence.
Classes 4-7 retail truck sales for the month decreased 10.8% to 17,797 from 19,959 a year earlier. Medium-duty truck sales also fell 4% sequentially from 18,532 reported in May. Medium-duty sales mostly have trended below the prior year since May 2024.
“It’s a challenging marketplace right now,” ACT Research Vice President Steve Tam said. “Small businesses, in particular, are a lot more price sensitive. So, in this still-inflationary environment, that one truck buyer goes to the dealer and says, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s X dollars more than I paid for this truck when I bought it, and I can’t afford that payment, I guess I’m going to go [and] fix whatever it is that’s broken on my truck.’ ”
Tam noted that medium-duty sales are currently in line with his forecast and what truck manufacturers have been expecting as well. Ward’s data also showed that Class 7 truck sales increased 1.2% to 4,342 units from 4,289 from last year. Class 6 sales declined 11.5% to 5,395 units from 6,095, and Classes 4-5 sales decreased 15.8% to 8,060 units from 9,575.
“Small businesses, in particular, are a lot more price sensitive,” ACT Research Vice President Steve Tam said regarding the current challenges in the marketplace. (ACT Research)
“There are still buyers out there for sure, no question,” Tam said. “It’s interesting, we often discount them, but the municipal customer base tends to be a lot more resilient through the cycle. Capital fiscal government budgets are juggernauts.
“They’re just these behemoths that, for the most part, continue to march. So, not nearly the volatility in those, but they’re also a small percentage of that medium-duty market. So, I don’t know if that might be accounting for some of the increase that we’ve seen in Class 7.”
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Freightliner, a brand of Daimler Truck North America, reported the most Class 7 sales at 1,736 units. Ford sold the most trucks in Class 6 (1,795) and Class 5 (2,950). Isuzu totaled the most Class 4 vehicle sales at 1,000 units.
“The other group that may be contributing to that could be the lease and one-way rental folks,” Tam said. “I think they’re more in the wait-and-see camp, looking for some clarity around tariffs, around inflation, around what the business community and the environment is going to look like on a more permanent, go-forward basis before they actually jump in with both feet.”
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