Registrations of new commercial vehicles were up more than 12 percent in 2010 over the previous year, and used commercial vehicle registrations in the U.S. hit a record level in 2010, according to Polk.

There were 367,377 new Class 3-8 vehicles registered during the 2010 calendar year, an increase of 12.2 percent over the 327,366 in 2009. While that's significant, notes Polk, the 2010 level still represents a level of activity over 50 percent lower than the peak level in 2006.

Approximately 672,000 used Class 3-8 units were registered, according to Polk, 21.7 percent over 2009. With this increase, used commercial vehicle registrations accounted for nearly 65 percent of the total commercial vehicle market (new and used) in 2010.
This is the first year registrations of used commercial vehicles have exceeded 600,000 units.

The uptick in the used market signifies a large opportunity for aftermarket parts manufacturers and suppliers that rely on the commercial repair and replacement business.

"The significant increase in used vehicle registrations during the 2010 calendar year is indicative of a strengthening in the demand for commercial vehicles overall," said Gary Meteer, director, sales and client services, at Polk. "Large fleet owners and operators are upgrading to new vehicles, and therefore the smaller fleet companies and independent owner operators have the opportunity to find available clean used equipment; however, the pattern of used vehicle transactions indicates a softer supply of clean used equipment during the last quarter of the calendar year."

The demand for good used equipment was greatest for Class 8 vehicles, which represented more than 47 percent of all used commercial vehicle transactions in 2010.

On the new side, however, it was the lighter vehicles largely responsible for the upswing, with a 25.7% increase in Class 3 vehicles compared to 2009. A strong 39.3 percent increase by Ford plus a 22.5 percent increase by Dodge attributed to the segment's year-over-year gain.

The fuel of choice remains diesel, with 84.8 percent of all GVW 3-8 new commercial vehicle registrations in 2010 powered by a diesel engine, up from 81.8 percent in 2009. The largest growth in diesel engine penetration has been in GVW 3 vehicles.

When you look at the registration data by fleet size, two extremes have driven the improvement in the market. At one end, new registrations of fleets operating five vehicles or less were up 17.7 percent from 2009. On the other end, large fleets, those with registrations of 500+ units, were up 16.5 percent. These two fleet segments are the traditional strength of the Commercial Vehicle Market as they each typically represents over 30 percent of new commercial vehicle registrations.

A significant number of the small-fleet registrations were Class 3 trucks, with new vehicle registrations up 36.2 percent compared to 2009.These registrations accounted for over 61 percent of total new registrations within the segment. The larger fleets, those with 500+ new registrations, were up only 12 percent in Class 3 and accounted for about 15 percent of total new registrations in the segment.

Conversely, when you look at Class 8 new registrations and fleet size, registrations by large fleets were up 11.2 percent, compared to 8.8 percent by fleets operating 1-5 vehicles. Large fleets traditionally account for around 50 percent of all new registrations of Class 8 vehicles.