In March, it is expected that there will be 16,800 trailer orders in the United States, which is down from February's totals by 33% and from March 2022 by 56%.
The results were announced by Jennifer McNealy, director of CV market research and publications at ACT Research. "Orders pulling back in March are a month earlier than normal seasonality would suggest, but near record-level order backlogs are easy to point to in explaining away the earlier-than-expected deceleration," she said.
"Despite the decline in orders in March, we believe that demand is still strong and that the build data is improving, albeit with some challenges. The backlog-to-build ratio for February, a proxy for the strength of the industry demand as we wait for March statistics, was 8.5 months, which is much higher than the historical norm. Therefore, fleets in need of trailers will have to exercise patience.
According to ACT Research's projections, the number of trailer backlogs should decrease by 12,000 units to a total of 230,000 units based on preliminary March orders and OEM construction plans.
However, she continued, "there will be some uncertainty in reported backlogs when final data are obtained, as orders are tentative and the build number is a projection.