RESTON, Va. — For the third time in four months, the recreational vehicle industry has posted a decline in units shipped to retailers.
Tuesday, the RV Industry Association released its August survey of manufacturers, which found RV wholesale shipments finished at 39,417 units, a decrease of 12.5 percent from the 45,031 units shipped last August.
All towable RVs, led by conventional travel trailers, totaled 34,458 units for the month, a decrease of 12.7 percent compared to last August’s towable RV shipment total of 39,479.
The trade group reported motorhomes ended August with 4,959 shipments to retailers, down 10.7 percent, compared to last August’s total of 5,552.
STILL UP FOR 2018
Year-to-date wholesale shipments are currently at 347,530, up 3.9 percent compared to this point last year, according to the RVIA. Towable RVs are up 4.7 percent to 305,795 units. Motorhome shipments are down 1.3 percent to 41,735 units.
Park Model RVs ended the month with 321 wholesale shipments, down 7.2 percent compared to last August. Year-to-date, park model RVs are down 5.2 percent compared to this point last year with 2,744 shipments.
The report comes as RV dealers from across North America are streaming into Elkhart County this week for the annual RV Open House, where manufacturers show their new models to the dealers and sign them up for orders for the coming year.
The news of the decline was not unexpected as Thor Industries, the largest RV company in the world, announced last week its fourth quarter net sales declined 3.1 percent. Thor still posted a record year, with net sales rising 14.9 percent on the year to $8.33 billion.
Thor CEO Bob Martin stated in the annual report, the company reduced its production in the fourth quarter as it incurred fourth-quarter costs to acquire European RV manufacturer Erwin Hymer Group and that President Trump’s tariffs on metal imports, higher labor costs and excess dealer inventory combined to impact the company’s profit.
Martin stated in the report that because there was large gains in orders from dealers in the first half of 2018, the company is expecting a fall off in orders.
“... due to dealer order strength experienced in the first half of fiscal 2018, we are planning for tougher year-over-year comparisons in the first half of fiscal 2019 with more favorable top-line growth rates in the second half of the fiscal year,” Martin said in the annual report. “Similar to the quarterly progression of our top line, we anticipate gross margin pressure to be greater in the first half of the year. During fiscal year 2019, our diluted earnings per share will benefit from a lower effective tax rate.”
While there will be short-term challenges for Thor, according to the report, Executive Chairman Peter B. Orthwein sees an industry that will have healthy growth long-term.
“Although we expect to have some near-term growth challenges, our industry’s end-market demand trends continue to remain very favorable,” Orthwein said in the annual report. “Unlike many of the market expansions we have experienced over the past two decades, the current market strength has been driven largely by new consumers adopting the RV lifestyle with many consumers adopting the lifestyle at a much younger age than we have seen historically. We view such retail growth to be more sustainable over the long term.”