Global commercial vehicle sales by region 2022

The United States is the world's largest market for commercial vehicles, with sales amounting to over 11 million units in 2022. The country dwarfed all other markets, with the Asia/Oceania/Middle East region coming in second, recording over seven million sales that same year.

A sector hit by the pandemic

The global automotive industry was severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Worldwide commercial vehicles production dipped under 22 million units that year, which represented a loss of over three million units year-over-year. With around 10.1 million vehicles produced, North America was the overall leading region for commercial vehicles output in 2020, though it also recorded a contraction of 18.5 percent compared to 2019. Light commercial vehicles, used for short-haul and urban transport, comprised most of the global production volume in 2020.

A dynamic U.S. market

Three out of five of the world's largest trucking companies were based in the United States, where the definition for commercial vehicles varies from other market. Trucks are often grouped into eight different types, ranging from Class 1 light duty trucks, including pickups such as the Toyota Tacoma, to Class 8 heavy duty haulers such as the Freightliner Cascadia. The U.S. commercial vehicle production industry has steadily increased after dramatic losses in output during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Since 2010, the production of commercial vehicles in the United States has risen from around five million units to just over 8.5 million units in 2018, before dipping to under seven million units in 2020 due to the pandemic.