Agri Marketing Challenges and Risks

2015 Challenges faced by Tractor Marketers

1. India Slides in Second Half– Tractor sales in India are the highest for any country in the world. In 2014, 593,000 units were sold. After a sturdy first half, however, sales went down from month-to-month, especially in the last quarter of the year.

2. U.S./Canada Upswing Ends– The upswing in the North American tractor market came to an end in 2014. Despite that, more than 235,000 tractors were sold in the U.S. and Canada, with volumes approaching the very high levels seen at the beginning of the 2000s.

3. Japan Sees Sharp Drop– In Japan, the Asia region’s most developed country for agricultural machinery, tractor sales went down very sharply. The result was a decline of 15 percent for 2014.

4. Sales Decline in Europe– In Europe, manufacturers found very different circumstances from country-to-country. Yet, with an overall sales decline of 8 percent in 2014, the trend was clearly down.

5. Brazil Starts Year with Decline– The Brazil market came back to 2010-12 levels in 2014 with around 55,000 units. One-third of these were tractors under 100 HP. While trends for the start of 2015 show another decline, it should be limited.

6. China Down After Years of Growth– The Chinese market has grown significantly over the past few years. However, sales went down in 2014, especially in the very small power segments.

7. Turkey Strong but Volatile– Turkey is another high-volume market for tractors. In 2014, investment by farmers was very strong, and tractor sales almost reached the vastly high level of 2011. However, the market has been very volatile over the years.

8. Regional Variation– While the number of new tractors sold globally in 2014 declined somewhat to 2.1 million units, regional results showed high variation.

Source:http://www.aem.org/News/Advisors/AEM/?A=1660