November Class 8 orders top 20,000 units

For the second consecutive month, Class 8 truck net orders topped 20,000 units in November, according to preliminary data released by FTR.

The firm said November orders reached 20,915, a 6% increase over November 2013. However, the orders were down 19% month-over-month. Orders for the three-month period including November annualize to 266,600 units.

“This is the highest number of orders in the month of November since 2010 continuing to show a solid year-over-year increase. However, they are not sufficient to indicate a strong beginning to 2014,” Don Ake, FTR vice president-commercial vehicles. “Order activity was below our expectations and needs to be stronger in December to fill up Q1 build slots. The market continues to grow, but slowly. The three-month average is consistent with our 2014 forecast.”