January TPS reader survey shows optimism returning to aftermarket despite legitimate concerns

Sales and business optimism is returning to trucking’s dealer and aftermarket channels, reported responders to Trucks, Parts, Service’s reimplemented reader survey on COVID-19 business conditions last month.

Since pausing our sentiment survey at the end of Q2 last year, business has improved in all corners of the industry. The aftermarket is now expected to grow by nearly 12 and 13 percent in the U.S. and Canada in the year ahead, and many TPS readers who last summer were just trying to keep their heads above water are now once again in growth mode.

COVID-19 hasn’t yet been eradicated but its strain on the aftermarket has lessened. Trucks are moving, which means business can hum again.

The story is similar in the dealer channel, which experienced its most volatile stretch of truck and trailer order fluctuations in recorded history last summer before finally stabilizing.

We’ll have more on the dealer market’s rebound tomorrow. In the parts and service space, optimism for the year ahead comes not only from aforementioned industry projections but also 2020’s second-half turnaround.

Source: TPS January 2021 reader survey.After hovering around 75 percent during the opening months of the pandemic, only 47 percent of TPS responders now report they have suffered a decrease in parts and service sales since last March. Conversely, one third of responders say their parts and service sales have actually increased since March 2020, while one in five readers say their parts and service business has stayed the same throughout the pandemic.

Among those who did lose sales, 29 percent of responders say their parts business has been hardest hit and 31 percent say their parts and service sectors have fallen equally. Only 16 percent of responders have experienced a larger drop in service revenue than in parts.