Irish tractor sales: John Deere knocks Massey off top spot

Of the 1,984 new units registered in 2018, the three top selling brands were John Deere, New Holland and Massey Ferguson. Peter Thomas Keaveney reports.

Peter Thomas Keaveney

29 January 2020

Irish tractor sales: John Deere knocks Massey off top spot

Of the 1,984 new units registered in 2018, the three top selling brands were John Deere (21%), New Holland (19%) and Massey Ferguson (17%), with the trio accounting for 57% of total sales. \Philip Doyle

The latest tractor sales figures show that John Deere is the top-selling brand in Ireland, with New Holland and Massey Ferguson close behind. The trio accounted for 57% of total sales.The figures are for 2018, the latest available, and reveal that 1,984 new units were registered, up from 1,796 in 2017.

The latest tractor sales figures show that John Deere is the top-selling brand in Ireland, with New Holland and Massey Ferguson close behind. The trio accounted for 57% of total sales.

The figures are for 2018, the latest available, and reveal that 1,984 new units were registered, up from 1,796 in 2017.

John Deere overtook Massey Ferguson at the top, with a 21% total market share, an increase over the previous year of 48 tractors (0.45%).

1,984 new units were registered, up from 1,796 in 2017

New Holland claimed second, accounting for 19% of the market, up 53 units. Massey Ferguson suffered at the top, dropping its share from 22% to 16.5%, selling 71 fewer units.

Case IH and Tumosan grew their respective market shares. Smaller growth in market share was also witnessed by Claas, SDF and JCB.

Meanwhile, other brands such as Valtra, Deutz Fahr, Landini, and Zetor all witnessed a small reduction in their market share.

UK market

Meanwhile, in the UK, the total number of tractors registered in 2018 was 13,795, including both agricultural tractors (over 50hp) and compact tractors (50hp and below). John Deere (31.9%) claimed top spot in the UK, accounting for close to one in three new tractors.

With 18.4% of the market share, New Holland placed second. Together, the pair accounted for 50.3% of total sales.

Dealers across Europe, including Ireland and the UK, with tractors not compatible to the higher safety standards were forced to register a larger number of units 2017

The largest growth in market share came from New Holland and Case IH. Case witnessed a 45.9% increase in sales from 1,028 to 1,500 units. New Holland grew its share by 16.1% from 2,180 to 2,532 units.

After growing its market share to over 14% in 2017, Massey Ferguson took a sizeable hit in 2018, seeing a drop in its market share of 4.5%, selling 623 less tractors.

Mother regulations

It’s worth noting that the EU “Tractor mother regulations” may have affected some tractor brands more than others, depending on the amount of existing units in stock.

Dealers across Europe, including Ireland and the UK, with tractors not compatible to the higher safety standards were forced to register a larger number of units 2017.

Legally, trade bodies such as the FTMTA in Ireland or the Agricultural Engineers Association in the UK are not allowed to release data on new tractor sales until at least one year has passed. This is due to EU competition law restrictions. Thus, total figures for 2019 won’t be released by such trade bodies until early 2021.