US dry van orders in December were up 26 per cent year-on-year, with a stand out result from the refrigerated trailer segment, which saw a 140 per cent increase over 2015, according to data published by ACT Research.
Despite that solid performance, both new and net orders were down five per cent from November, and were insufficient to offset weaker orders earlier in the year; net trailer orders for the full year were weaker than last year.
“For the full year, industry net orders of just under 229k units were down 28 per cent versus 2015,” said Frank Maly, Director–CV Transportation Analysis and Research at ACT.
Maly continued, “Dry vans and reefers, both off 30 per cent to 31 per cent year-over-year, were the major factors in that total market performance, although net orders for every trailer category in our group of ten were down from 2015.”