EU commercial vehicle market has weak start to 2020

The EU commercial vehicles market fell sharply by 11.5% in January, on a yearly basis, an trade group said Tuesday. "With the exception of buses, demand fell in all segments," the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA) announced. The group's data showed that the number of new commercial vehicle registrations in the month were 153,114 units, down from 172,930 in the same month last year.

While all major EU markets saw declines last month, Spain (-19.3%), France (-9.1%), Germany (-7.6%) and Italy (-2.9%) saw the sharpest declines.

The EU's demand for vans – light commercial vehicles – dropped 10.2% in January.

"Demand for new heavy trucks dropped by 21.7% in the first month of the year," it said.

On the medium/heavy commercial vehicles side, demand for new trucks across the EU fell as much as 19.2% in the same period.

"January 2020 registrations of buses and coaches across the EU were 4.9% higher than in the same month last year," the ACEA added.

Last year, the number of new commercial vehicle registrations in the 27-member bloc totaled 2.55 million.