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Dec. 26, 2023
By Ben Thorpe, Farm Equipment magazine One year after the first signs of downward motion in the ag equipment market began to appear in survey results, dealers are indicating 2024 will be their toughest year since the pandemic for this year's Dealer Business Outlook & Trends report. A combination of recovering inventories, high interest rates and general economic downturn has dealers preparing to weather the storm. Last year's survey saw a notable drop-off in optimism in dealers' new and used wholegoods revenue forecasts, while parts and service revenue forecasts hit record highs. While dealers are no longer facing the equipment shortages that dampened their optimism in the last report, price increases remain a factor despite falling from 2022 peaks. Optimism remains to some degree based on healthy farmer financials and solid commodity prices. However, the question of how much cash farmers will bring into 2024 has yet to be answered. Mixed 2024 Wholegoods Outlook New wholegoods revenue projections were once again mostly negative in this year's report as demand declines. Nearly half of all surveyed dealers (48.6%) are forecasting some degree of new wholegoods revenue decline in 2024, just above the 48% who said the same in the previous report. The percentage forecasting a decline of 8% or greater, however, declined year-over-year from 25.3% to 14.3%. At the same time, a little over a quarter (28.6%) are forecasting a revenue increase of 2% or more, up from 22.7% who forecast an increase for 2023 in the previous report. Some 7.6% are forecasting an increase of 8% or more in 2024 new wholegoods revenue (down from 8% who said the same in the previous report). In the U.S., 27.8% of surveyed dealers are forecasting new wholegoods revenue to increase vs. 21.8% in the last report. At the same time, the percentage of U.S. dealers forecasting new wholegoods revenue to decline also rose to 50% vs. 49.3%. To read entire article, Click Here Tweet |
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