Agricultural machines, in 2024 Italian market declines by 12,3%

The Italian agricultural machinery market closes 2024 with a significant contraction in sales. This is what results from the data processed by FederUnacoma on the basis of the records provided by the Ministry of Transport related to the registrations of mechanical vehicles in the past twelve months indicate. The decline affected all the main types of machines starting from tractors which, with approximately 15,448 units registered, lost 12.3% compared to last year (17,613 units sold), recording the worst performance since 1952. A negative sign also for combine harvesters, which lose 31.8% compared to 266 vehicles registered (390 in 2024), and for transporters (tractors with loading platforms) which lose 14.9% to a total of 525 units sold (617 last year). The difficult economic phase also affected telescopic handlers and trailers. Compared to the past twelve months, the former fell by 14.4%, stopping at 977 units registered (1,141 in 2024), while trailers managed to limit losses to 2.8% with 7,504 vehicles registered (there were 7,718 in 2024).
The performance of the sector, which after the peak of 2021 appears to be declining for the third consecutive year, was affected primarily by the increase in production costs and high interest rates which make access to credit difficult. These factors, together with the stagnation of agricultural incomes, have affected the demand for machinery also in the main European and North American countries. In the European Community, France (-10.1% for a total of 26,507 units sold), Germany (-3.4% and 29,291 vehicles registered) and Great Britain (-11.9% for a total of 11,761 vehicles) slowed down, while in Nord America decline both the United States (-13.2% for a total of 217,200 units sold) and Canada (-15.8% and 23,444 vehicles).