BLOOMINGTON and COLUMBUS, IN – Newly released preliminary numbers show North American orders for new heavy-duty trucks in August fell but increased in the medium-duty sector.

The freight forecasting firm FTR said orders for Class 8 trucks totaled 19,550, the lowest level since September 2013, down 18 percent versus July and 22 percent year-over-year. 

With the exception of July, which was positively impacted by a new large fleet order, the pace of recent Class 8 orders has been consistent, within 2,000 units each month since May. 

With the heavy ordering that proceeded this period, Class 8 orders over the past twelve months have annualized to a solid 350,000 units.

“Historically August is one of the lowest ordering months, so if we have bottomed out at 20,000 units, that’s positive,” said Don Ake, FTR vice president of commercial vehicles. “It shows the market is stabilizing at a fairly high rate resulting in a reasonably soft landing as production begins to moderate.  We expect orders to remain at this level in September before steadily rising beginning in October.”

Meantime, a separate report on the wider Class 5-8 market from commercial vehicle industry data provider ACT Research showed for August 37,200 orders were booked, down 8 percent from July and down 14 percent compared to August 2014.

“The year-over-year decline marked the fifth consecutive negative reading for Classes 5-8 orders,” said Kenny Vieth, ACT’s president and senior analyst. “However, we continue to believe that much of the order decline is a reflection of larger backlogs and tough comps, rather than any substantive change in demand.”

According to ACT Research, Class 8 orders were 19,700 units, 20 percent below July orders and 22 percent below August 2014.

“Because August is typically the second weakest order month of the year, seasonal adjustment raises the month’s volume to 22,600 units,” Vieth said. “North American Classes 5-7 vehicle orders rebounded in August to 17,500 units. This result was up 10 percent from July, but down 3 percent compared to last August. Historically, August is an above average order month for medium-duty vehicles, so seasonal adjustment actually reduces August’s medium-duty order volume to 17,200 units.

Final data for August from both FTR and ACT will be released later this month.