“A significant number of fleets believe there’s still enough time to take a ‘wait and see’ attitude towards buying trucks in 2007,” said president Chris Kemmer in an interview with Fleet Owner. “By the end of next year is when they’ll get off the fence.”
Kemmer's survey found that 44% remain undecided as to whether they’ll purchase trucks in 2007. By contrast, 26% said they would buy trucks in 2007, while 36% said they would avoid purchasing trucks in that year altogether.
Her survey also found that 74% of those fleets plan to buy new trucks in the next six months primarily to add capacity, with 48% planning to buy new trailers over the same period.
“Though this is admittedly just a snapshot of the industry, over the last two quarters, three out of the four fleets we’ve surveyed are planning to buy new equipment. And more fleets are saying they are doing so to add capacity now versus our last survey in April,” Kemmer said.
About 41% of the fleets surveyed noted that at least a portion of the units they plan to buy for the rest of the year are to add capacity to their operations, she added.
