The latest market report from the FTMTA Statistical Service has noted a slight recovery in tractor registrations in February, which were up by 2% over the same month in 2023.
Overall, new tractor registrations are still 7% down for the year-to-date, with the machinery trade hoping and praying for a break in the weather to encourage farmers to come out and start buying new machinery of all types.
Although franchised dealers may be feeling a little disappointed in sales of new tractors the second hand trade is running further behind still with a 18.6% decline in used tractors being registered for the first time this year.
Despite the gloomy scenario painted by these figures, the one bright spot is that the average power of the tractors sold has moved up into the 161 – 200hp category.
These tractors will obviously be more expensive than than the smaller items and so the dealers turnover will, to some extent, be maintained by the general movement towards higher horsepower units.
Limited data from FTMTA
Unfortunately, the figures issued by the FTMTA do not go into any great detail and the numbers listed by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) only show the total number of registrations, with no categorisation of power levels.
Despite this paucity of information, it is clear from the FTMTA that it is the larger tractors that have maintained momentum, with the over 200hp power band now accounting for nearly 13% of sales, compared with 7.7% this time last year (2023).
This reflects the situation in America where the smaller tractors have taken a dive, while sales of larger units have increased during the last year.
Telescopic loaders also showed an increase of 13.2%, while the registration of wheeled loaders decreased by 9%.
However, there is some ambiguity involved, for not all loaders may be registered for road use so the numbers should be considered as a guide only.