May Tractor Registrations
The figures for new tractor registrations during May issued this week by FTMTA continue to illustrate what has been a challenging year thus far for sales of new tractors. May saw 199 new units registered as against 225 machines in the same month of 2016. The total level of registrations during the first five months stands at 1,102 tractors which a drop of some 13% year on year. As mentioned previously in this column, July has become a very important month for tractors registrations since the introduction of the split year for vehicle registration purposes in 2013 and close attention will be paid to the performance of tractor registrations in the coming July.
Slightly over 87% of all new tractor registrations during the first five months of the year have been of machines with greater than 100 hp and 53% were of units with more than 120 hp. Nearly 25% of all tractors registered during the period were machines with in excess of 150 hp. The five counties with the most registrations for the year to date remained unchanged at the end of May: Cork, Tipperary, Wexford, Galway and Kilkenny have seen 144, 104, 74, 64 and 60 units registered respectively which between them account for just over 40% of total registrations.
The telehandler market continues its recent strong performance with 27 units registered in May which is a substantial increase on the 16 units in May of 2016. The total number of telehandlers registered during the first five months is 166 units which is an 8.50% increase year on year. Backhoe loaders have also seen a significant improvement with 26 units registered during the period under review as against 20 in the same months of 2016. May is traditionally a month with higher levels of registrations of wheeled loaders, no doubt driven by silage pit activity, and this year is no exception with 28 units registered last month bringing the total for the first five months to 49 units as against 43 machines year on year. Cork and Tipperary have seen levels of 10 and 8 respectively of these machines registered thus far.
Be a part of a stronger, professional, farm machinery industry – join the Farm Tractor and Machinery Trade Association – contact FTMTA at 045 409309 or membership@ftmta.ie for details.
