CEMA: POSITIVE FIRST SIX MONTHS FOR TRACTOR REGISTRATIONS İN 2019

Press release...

Positive first six months for tractor registrations in 2019...

Demand for tractors remains stable, but industry barometer tempers expectations for the second half of the year...

Brussels, 16 September 2019 -

Overall, some 96,428 tractors were registered across Europe in the first six months of 2019, according to numbers sourced from national authorities. Of these registrations, 21,285 tractors were 37kW (50 hp) and under and 75,143 were 38kW and above.

CEMA (European Agricultural Machinery Association) considers that 77,383 of these vehicles are agricultural tractors, the rest being quads, telehandlers or other equipment. An overview of the total tractor registrations in each country can be found in the annex. Agricultural tractor registrations for the first semester increased by around 10% in comparison with the first six months of 2018. One should however remember that registrations in 2018 were impacted by new legislation coming into force on 1 January 2018, which resulted in a high number of pre-registered tractors in December 2017 without an increase in underlying demand.

The current increase should therefore take this phenomenon into account, since 2018 is otherwise considered to have been a positive year for tractor sales.

When estimating the trend without this unusual peak, the first semester in 2019 continues the slight recovery for demand in tractors seen in 2018.


In Turkey, after a total sales record was achieved in 2017, the tractor market began to decline sharply in the second half of 2018 and has increasingly continued to fall in the first half of 2019. After closing the year 2017 with 72.909 units, the domestic sales stood at 48,356 units in 2018. According to current provisional reports, the market declined 62% in the first five months of 2019 compared to the same period of the previous year, and the downturn is expected to continue all year long.

Main causes are the downtrend in the Turkish economy, which started in the second half of 2018, the notable rise in interest rates and currency levels, and the significant increase in agricultural input prices, which cannot be tolerated by product prices. (note: tractor unit numbers for Turkey are not included in the European registration numbers).

CEMA Barometer confirms negative trend...

As indicated by the September CEMA barometer, the general business climate index of the agricultural machinery industry in Europe is now in negative range for the third time in a row, with both current and future business expectations evaluated as negative. The expected slowdown in incoming orders is also confirmed, as 44% of the companies now foresee that their order intake would decrease within the coming 6 months (compared to 33% last month).