Tractor Market Holding Steady

The revised new tractor registration figures for 2018 issued by the Farm Tractor & Machinery Trade Association (FTMTA) during February highlighted a market that had enjoyed its best year since the onset of the global financial crisis and recession in 2008. Those figures reported a total of 1,984 tractors registered during 2018 which was an increase of 10% on the previous year. The latest figures from FTMTA covering the first two months of 2019 indicate that the much improved market has continued into this year.

A total of 656 new tractors were registered to the end of February which is a drop of only 5 units or less than 1% on the 661 units registered during the same period of 2018. As would be expected, the lion’s share of these machines were registered during January with 443 units as against the 213 registrations in February. While the February level was much lower than that of January it did represent an 8% increase on February 2018.

The three counties with the highest levels of registrations so far this year are Cork, Tipperary and Wexford with 82, 72 and 54 units registered respectively to the end of February. Beyond the high levels of units registered in the top three counties there is a healthy spread of new registrations across the county with new tractors registered in all registration areas at this stage; Leitrim saw the lowest level of registrations with 3 new tractors registered in that county so far.

The trend towards higher power tractors in the Irish market seems to have accelerated somewhat in the most recent registration figures with 94% of all new tractors registered during the first two months of the year having in excess of 100hp, 56% over 120hp and 29% over 150hp. Interestingly, there were only 2 tractors of less than 70hp registered in January and February.

Telehandler registrations have been at very high levels in recent years with 374 units registered during 2018. Even the recent strong figures have been somewhat eclipsed by the remarkable level of registrations seen so far in 2019. A total of 161 new telehandlers have been registered during the first two months which is an 83% increase on the same time last year. The fact that 72 of these units were registered in Dublin and surrounding counties is undoubtedly an indication that many were destined for use in the resurgent construction sector in the greater Dublin area. That said many were such machines were also registered in more rural locales and are an increasing feature of Irish agricultural mechanisation in various types of farming enterprises.

Wheeled loaders have also seen a strong start to the year with 20 new units registered to the end of February; an increase of 6 units on 2018. The main registration activity around such machines is typically later in the year to coincide with the start of the pit silage harvesting season.  Backhoe loaders are also experiencing an increasing level of registrations with 23 units registered during January and February, up from 18 units in 2018 which saw a total of 70 such machines registered during the full year.

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.