While the South African truck market stumbled along during 2017 – mainly due to adverse political influences (read Zuma/Gupta) affecting our economy downwards – news from Daimler Trucks overseas is that the company increased its worldwide deliveries in the first eleven months of 2017 by 12 percent year on year to 422 500 units.
Until the end of November, more trucks were delivered than in the whole of 2016. In the full year of 2016, the Daimler truck division sold approximately 415 100 vehicles of the Mercedes-Benz, FUSO, Freightliner, Western Star, Thomas Built Buses and BharatBenz brands worldwide.
On the basis of initial December data, Daimler Trucks assumes that it will end the full year with unit sales in the magnitude of 465 000 vehicles (2016: 415 100). The final sales figures will be available at Daimler’s annual press conference on February 1, 2018.
“For full-year 2017, we at Daimler Trucks anticipate unit sales in the magnitude of 465 000 trucks – significantly more than in the previous year and significantly more than we expected at the beginning of the year. This is only possible with leading products and an excellent international team – especially with an ongoing situation of weak tailwinds from our markets,” says Martin Daum, member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG responsible for Trucks & Buses.
The really good news here is that as one can see from the figures, trucks are always needed and will always be there. What is required, however, is good policies to get economies moving and trucks sales up. At the #ANC106 event held in East London, new ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa said that 2018 will see a transformation to the economy and that investment in the country would be at the forefront of his plans to lead the party.
That is great news. Can we start by kicking Zuma and his Gupta mates into touch and off the field so that we can all start winning the game once again. Thank you Cyril.
