Vietnam’s market for commercial vehicles over 2 tons gvw expanded by over 33% to 15,211 units in the first quarter of 2021 after declining by over 25% to 11,390 units in the same period of last year.

The Indonesian market for commercial vehicles over 2 tons gvw declined by just over 4% to 29,867 units in the first quarter of 2021 after plunging by 25% to 31,209 units in the same period of last year.

South Korea’s commercial vehicle market over 2 tons gvw expanded by almost 13% to 59,221 units in the first quarter of 2021 from weak year-earlier sales of 52,495 units.

Sales of large buses and coaches (>7.5t gvw) in the fiscal year 2020-21 (April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021) decreased sharply by 81.70% to 7,322 units from 40,016 units registered in the previous same fiscal year (2019-20).

Sales of light-duty passenger vehicles (7.5 tons and below) fell by 73.6% in the fiscal year 2020-21 (April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021) to 12,078 from 45,814 units in the previous fiscal year and from 52,170 units two years ago. Exports also fell dramatically by 61.8% to 1,641 units in 2021. Production experienced a decrease in output of 65.8% to 15,475 year-on-year from 45,291, and from over 55,000 in 2018-19.

India - Sales of light-duty passenger vehicles (7.5 tons and below) in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2020-21 (April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021) fell by 54.3% to 4,652 units from 10,170 in the same quarter of FY2019-20.  Exports fell by 37.2%  to 733 (1,168) and production fell sharply by 50.2% to 5,688 (11,429).

Domestic sales of medium and large buses and coaches (7.5t gvw and above) fell by 56.1% in the fourth quarter of financial year 2020-21 (January to March) to register just 4,744 units, down from 10,810 units in Q4/2019-20. Total bus and coach production also fell sharply during the fourth quarter by 54% to just shy of 5,000 units (10,763). Total exports decreased by 38.7% to 1,211 vehicles from 1,974 units in Q4/2019-20.

While the European market is growing at a phenomenal rate – the European electric bus market is forecast to grow from 2,114 units registered in 2020 to more than 12,760 units in 2030 - the market in Asia really accounts for the lion share of the electric city bus market, stated Rueben Scriven - Senior Analyst at Interact Analysis, during an on-line presentation at the Sustainability Bus conference last month.

The total number of alternative drivelines in city buses in Western Europe (+Poland) totalled 7,747 units accounting for 58.9% of total city bus registrations in 2020 of 13,140 units, according to market analysis by Wim Chatrou of Chatrou CME Solutions of The Netherlands.

The Peruvian market ended the first quarter of 2021 with the sale of 4,401 commercial vehicles, an increase of 42.1% compared with 3,098 units in the first three months of 2020. This was the best first quarter result in seven years, since 2014, when 5,382 units were sold.

The bus and coach chassis segment maintained a downward trend and decreased 16.3% in the first quarter of 2021, with 845 units exported. Bus and coach exports have been in a downward spiral since 2019 and compared with two years ago the exports have shrunk by almost 60%.

Production of coach output slid by 67% during the first quarter as the market for commuter, tourism and long-distance coach travel dried up.