A recent survey has predicted continuum in the slowdown of commercial vehicle sales ‘as there is no immediate demand for new vehicles.’
The latest Metric Global’s National Fleet Operators Business Sentiment Survey 2019 reflects that slowdown in commercial vehicle sales will continue in the near term as there is no immediate demand for new vehicles.
The survey sampled its findings on 284 responses from a respective group of fleets.
Half of the respondents expect that the absence of demand is majorly due to ongoing slowdown that has shrunk down the freight business.
Further, significant chunks believe that axle norms are also responsible for commercial vehicle demand woes.
Around 34% of the surveyed fleet groups feel that ‘Present generation trucks are able to carry higher load due to new axle norms, so there is no immediate need for new vehicles.”
A majority of respondents feel that axle load has resulted in fleet under-utilisation.
According to the survey report, one prominent fleet operator said “Currently, there are 80 lakh commercial vehicles plying on Indian roads. Roughly half ply on volume basis and the other half ply on weight basis. There has been a 25% increase in permissible axle load by the government. This applied to half of the CV part carrying weight load results in capacity increase of equivalent to 10 lakh (1 million) commercial vehicles.”
In the month of September, around 40 per cent of trucks under the survey remained idle. “Economic Slow Down responsible only in part. Return Load not available is due to structural reasons and will persist until logistics gets organized on “Hub & Spoke” pattern,” the survey added.
