While overall net commercial orders dipped from the previous month, ACT Research released preliminary data that indicates North America medium-duty commercial vehicle sales remained positive due to backlogs and strong orders since late last year.
While final numbers for February won’t be released until mid-March, a spokesperson for ACT said net orders were expected to approach 12,800 for Class 5 through 7 vehicles, which include school buses. January net orders for Class 5 through 7 were 12,574.
Meanwhile, preliminary Class 8 net orders for February will approach 22,500, down from 25,264 orders in January. The preliminary net order numbers are typically accurate to within 5 percent of the actual figure.
“February net orders were incrementally below expectations,” said Kenny Vieth, president and senior analyst, ACT Research. “However, healthy backlogs and strong orders over the previous four months continue to support our forecasts for 2012.”
