Solid year for Isuzu

Isuzu delivered 7442 new trucks to the Australian market last year, the performance representing year-on-year growth of four per cent in what marks its 27th consecutive year of sales leadership.

Isuzu Australia Limited's Director and Chief Operating Officer, Phil Taylor, said a strong end to the year gave cause for some optimism as we head into a new year.

"As many in the industry are aware, 2015 was quite a patchy year for truck sales," he said.

"After a slow start in January and February the market began to pick up and held form through to the close, with December showing the second-best results for the year.

"This augurs well for an encouraging start to 2016."

Mr Taylor said last year saw Isuzu bolster its presence with a number of key new models.

"We have had some great product news stories recently," he said.

"The launch of our intelligent new N Series last year with its comprehensive safety package, broadened model choice and with particular variants benefitting from impressive power and torque increases represented another high-water mark in the light truck market.

"Our twin-steer FY range continues to break into new segments of the heavy market – we are seeing strong demand across other vocational applications following our successes with agitator work with these models.

"We are also building toward the very exciting launch of our new medium-duty product, set for next month."

Mr Taylor said he expected truck sales to hold relatively steady throughout the early part of 2016 and hoped to see continued growth across the market.

"We've ended 2015 on solid ground, but getting comfortable at this point would be a grave mistake.

"We're acutely aware of the competition across all market segments, but we're confident we can continue to deliver robust and flexible products for a broad range of end uses."