New registrations, market resilience in Italy
Figures processed by FederUnacoma on the basis of Ministry of Transport registrations show a total of 17,256 tractors in October, down 15.3% on 2021 but with a sales volume still above pre-Covid levels. Good sales levels also for combine harvesters and telehandlers.
The difficult economic situation is not holding back the agricultural machinery market in Italy. In the ten months from January to October, registrations recorded declines for all types of vehicles, but sales volumes were still high. The drop compared to the previous year is in part a normal phenomenon - explains the Italian manufacturers' federation FederUnacoma - because 2021 was a record year for sales (+36% for tractors alone), impossible to match this year, which is also suffering from delays in the supply chain that have reduced the production pace of manufacturers. However, it is significant that sales levels remain higher than the average of previous years, indicating that demand for mechanical equipment for the primary sector is still substantial. Tractors recorded a total of 17,256 units sold in the ten months, down 15.3% compared to 2021, but with higher numbers than the approximately 16,000 registered in 2019 before the crisis caused by the Covid pandemic. Combine harvesters recorded 335 units sold, down 11.6% on 2021, but with higher volume than pre-Covid 2019. Transporters reached 441, a drop of 18.5% and a lower level of sales than in 2019, and so did trailers, which stopped at 7,340, just below the 2019 figure. Lastly, telescopic handlers closed the ten months with a drop of 24% at 964 units, a significantly higher number than in the years before the health crisis. In presenting data on the national market - during the press conference presenting EIMA 2022 held this afternoon in Bologna - FederUnacoma president Alessandro Malavolti noted how the agro-mechanical sector, like every other industrial sector, is grappling with a difficult economic situation. "To the problems relating to supplies, the cost of raw materials, transport and logistics costs that were already weighing on industrial companies," said Malavolti, "we can add this autumn those relating to energy costs, rising inflation and financial restrictions, and this is not helping the economy of companies and their competitiveness on the market". "However, the sector is holding up in this difficult context - added the president of the manufacturers - thanks also to a system of purchasing aid that has a significant impact, and thanks to an increasing propensity on the part of farms to acquire new-generation technologies. Data from the latest ISTAT agricultural census reveal that out of the approximately 1,100,000 farms in Italy, more than 10% have introduced significant innovations in recent years. A total of 250,000 innovations have been acquired by 120,000 innovative farms, most of which have focused on mechanisation: 28% of the technologies acquired relate to basic mechanical equipment, 11.6% to sowing and planting systems, 8.8% to tillage equipment, and 8.3% to irrigation systems.
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