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The year 2018 was a banner year in the U.S. and Canada, and International Trucks hopes to continue building on that success.
โIn Canada, it was phenomenal, we couldnโt keep up,โ Joel Shaw, vocational sales manager for Navistar Canada. โOn the International side, we grew our market share across Canada in each segment.โ
Darin Vehlewald, product marketing manager for severe service trucks at Navistar, said they have been anticipating a dip in demand for some time.
โFor the last two years, weโve really been ramping up, and I think a lot of people forecasting internally, as well as equipment manufacturers and even customers, (a downturn) is kind of expected,โ he said. โA year-and-a-half ago we thought it was going to starting levelling off, but it really hasnโt up until the last couple of months. Itโs not dipping but the rate at which itโs increasing has slowed a lot.โ
Shaw said the refuse market has been one of the strongest in Canada, with several businesses struggling to keep up to demand.
In Western Canada, he said business has picked up slightly with oil back to around $60 a barrel, however continues to lag behind its eastern counterpart.
There is one area, though, where Western Canada is booming.
โThe freight side of things has been crazy out there,โ said Shaw, โwhich surprised me because oil just hasnโt been there, but freight has really picked up.โ
Approval of the Trans-Mountain Pipeline is one way to improve the western Canadian economy, according to Shaw.
In the U.S., Mark Johnson, vice-president of strategic marketing for Navistar, could not be happier with the way his company has performed of late.
โWe posted incredible financial performance in 2018,โ said Johnson. โOne of the reasons we did is that we are winning the trust of our customers back. Customers are putting their faith in us once again, and really that goes to the tremendous product line that we have today.โ
Johnson said Navistar boasts the industryโs newest and most comprehensive lineup of vocational trucks.
โNo other manufacturer has a breadth of coverage of vocational, particularly in construction and concrete,โ he said. โThereโs a little bit of momentum in this business right now, and I will tell you in the construction and concrete markets, last year we grew our market share by nearly two points.โ
In addition to regaining the trust of its customers, Johnson said the companyโs focus on uptime and its driver-first mentality has led to its recent success.
