Dive Brief:
- Net sales for Wabash dropped in Q1, reflecting “slower-than-anticipated customer pickups of finished goods,” the truck maker reported last Wednesday.
- Slower years in the trucking industry typically come with delays in pickups, the OEM said. That left net sales at $515.3 million for the quarter, a 17% decrease year over year.
- “Most of the gap in pickups were in January and early to mid-February,” President and CEO Brent Yeagy said on an earnings call. “And then we saw pickups dramatically improve as we moved into the tail end of the first quarter.”
Dive Insight:
Customer delays may be short-lived.
Wabash expects the pickup delays to be recovered in subsequent quarters, particularly Q2, Yeagy said in an earnings announcement.
The OEM said that it is experiencing the setback along with others in the manufacturing industry.
“This is a normal type of situation that our industry feels across the board at any time that we are in, not only the first quarter of the year, but when compounded by being in a down year relative to dry vans, this is a normal and customary type of issue to have,” Yeagy said.
Trailer orders have fallen below production levels recently, FTR noted in a monthly report. Net trailer orders plummeted by 46% in January year over year, declined by 23% in February and were down 18% in March, per FTR data.
