According to a report by consulting firm ACT Research, US trailer orders have declined in January, following the monthly saw-tooth order pattern that started in October 2012. Despite that month-over-month decline, however, orders were still strong enough to generate a small gain in January backlog.
“A total of 20,357 net orders were booked in January, down 34 per cent from December’s unsustainable level,” said Frank Maly, Director-CV Transportation with ACT Research. “However, January activity generally met our expectations that the new year might start a bit slow before gaining stride. The average seasonally adjusted annual rate for the last two months was 269,000 units, which gives a better perspective on the market,” he added.
January backlogs increased to 5.3 months.