Prognosis for the 2027-28 period is for increasing trailer demand which will eventually lead to a new record sales level
Industry analyists CLEAR International has just issued its latest 2025 forecast for the East European Heavy Trailer Market.
In 2023 the Russian government moved the country onto a war footing. This included buying significant quantities of transport assets including trailers. As a result the Russian trailer market grew by 57.0%. This effect has continued into 2024 with another increase of 32.1%. However, for the remainder of the forecast period, Russian trailer demand will revert to more normal levels.
With the exception of Russia, most other East European countries saw a fall in trailer demand in 2024. This more than offset the Russia effect so that the overall demand for trailers in the region fell by 10.2%. In particular, the region’s largest markets, such as Poland, Türkiye and Lithuania saw substantial falls in trailer registrations in 2024.
The reasons for this weakness are tolerably obvious: The war in Ukraine has led to a fall in business confidence which has manifested itself as a lack of willingness to invest in new transport equipment such as trailers and trucks.
Also, 2023 had record demand for new trailers, with the East European market exceeding 120,000 units for the first time. Türkiye had sensational levels of trailer sales. Arguably there are now plenty of new trailers in the regional fleet.
Another dampening factor is that since 2022q4 the demand for road transport in Eastern Europe (measured in tonne-km) has stopped growing. It has been increasing in a linear fashion for the last twenty years, but even Poland, which has the highest road transport demand in Europe, had a 2.7% fall in demand. In the whole of Europe this was only exceeded by Germany which had a fall of 5.8%.
Import and Export Trade in Eastern Europe, measured in US$, had been falling since 2022, but in the second half of 2024 first stabilised then started to grow.
The outlook for 2025 is for a similar trailer demand level to that of 2024. Although thirteen of the fifteen countries in the region will see some growth, Türkiye and Russia will still be settling back to a normal level of demand from the very high levels of 2023/24. Falls in these two countries will almost balance the limited increases in the other smaller markets.
After another flat year in 2026 there will be growth in demand for trailers in 2027/28 with a new record for sales level established in 2028.
Developments affecting the war in Ukraine could alter the forecast in either direction. The current political unrest in Türkiye also has the potential to influence demand, since this country had the second highest trailer demand in the region in 2024.
Gary Beecroft, director of CLEAR International commented, “The outlook for the East European Trailer Market in 2025/26 is flat. It will be 2027 before there is any substantial growth and 2028 could provide a year of record breaking trailer demand.”