Orders for heavy-duty trucks hit a record high last month, as carriers riding a white-hot freight market lined up for new big rigs during what is normally the slowest month for equipment purchases.
Trucking companies ordered 52,400 Class 8 trucks, the big rigs used for regional and long-haul routes, according to a preliminary report from ACT Research. That is nearly triple the orders from last year, when fleets ordered 18,726 trucks, and a 24% jump from June’s orders.
“This is an all-time record,” said Tim Denoyer, a vice president and senior analyst with ACT, which has order data going back nearly four decades.
The July peak follows a six-month ordering spree as trucking companies flush with cash from near-record earnings placed more orders than equipment manufacturers could handle.
“The backlogs got so long, and the 2018 year sold out in May, so in June the manufacturers started opening up the 2019 slots, which typically doesn’t happen until the fall,” Mr. Denoyer said.
The orders come in a trucking field marked by soaring freight rates and tight capacity. Several retailers, consumer-goods distributors and manufacturers in recent quarterly earnings reports have cited high shipping prices and difficulty moving goods as drags on profit margins as they try to meet consumer and factory demand.
Trucking companies are displaying strong confidence that demand will remain robust throughout the peak fall shipping season and beyond.
Schneider National Inc., one of the biggest U.S. truckload carriers, raised its full-year earnings outlook after reporting its second-quarter net profit soared 42% to $65.8 million and revenue jumped 15% to $1.2 billion. The Green Bay, Wis.-based carrier said it is “seeing no moderation in the supply-demand balance for the remainder of 2018.”
“We believe that the current freight market fundamentals will remain in place for the remainder of the year,” said John Wiehoff, chairman and chief executive of C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc., the biggest broker of freight transport in the U.S. The company reported strong improvement in profit margins this year in a sign that companies are paying more to secure tight truck capacity.
Knight Transportation, a truckload division of Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc., said its revenue per loaded mile, a key measure of pricing strength, ballooned 20.9% year-over-year in the second quarter. Company officials said it was getting customers to convert higher spot-market rates into higher contract rates.
“It’s not normal or typical to still see the kind of freight available and the rates available in the spot market, which suggest the strength that we’re experiencing,” said David Jackson, chief executive of Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings.
About 58% of shippers, carriers and brokers polled by Morgan Stanley said they expect freight rates to rise by around 10% this year, according to a research note the bank issued this week.
Write to Jennifer Smith at jennifer.smith@wsj.com and Paul Page at paul.page@wsj.com