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Natural-gas heavy-duty trucks sold 6,370 units in January, up 96% year over year! Jiefang captured nearly 40% of the market to claim the top spot, while Sinotruk and Foton led the charge.

Release Date:

2024-02-23

In 2023, China’s natural-gas-powered heavy-duty truck market surged from the beginning to the end of the year, posting a remarkable 12-month streak of growth, with cumulative sales reaching a record high of 152,000 units and year-on-year sales tripling. This made it the standout segment within the heavy-duty truck market. Moreover, industry analysts predict that the natural-gas heavy-duty truck market will remain robust in 2024.

Is that so? How hot could it really be? Read the analysis report by First Commercial Vehicle Network on the natural-gas heavy-truck market for January 2024.

January sales reached 6,370 vehicles, up 96% year over year, marking the best start in five years.

According to end‑user sales data compiled by the First Commercial Vehicle Network—based on compulsory traffic insurance records and excluding exports and military vehicles—domestic natural‑gas heavy‑truck sales totaled 6,370 units in January 2024, up 4% month over month from December last year. Year over year, sales also continued to grow, with a 96% increase—a pace that expanded by 25 percentage points compared with the previous month (December 2023 saw a 71% year‑on‑year rise). With this result, the current growth cycle for natural‑gas heavy trucks, which began in December 2022, has now extended to 14 consecutive months of year‑over‑year gains.

As shown by the monthly trend chart of domestic natural‑gas heavy‑truck terminal sales over the past five years, the red bar representing January 2024 stands significantly higher than that of any previous January. Judging solely by January sales, the 2024 natural‑gas heavy‑truck market has gotten off to its strongest start in five years, marking a promising beginning. However, objectively speaking, this year’s sharp increase in January was largely driven by the relatively low sales base in the same period last year. The level reached in January 2024 would rank only third from the bottom when compared with 2023—higher only than January and December—and would still be among the lowest when viewed against 2020, surpassing only January, February, and December of that year (as illustrated above). In fact, by the end of 2023, the domestic heavy‑truck market—including natural‑gas models—had already cooled markedly, with actual January sales falling to just 36,100 units. Entering 2024, terminal demand for heavy trucks has continued to decelerate, with January sales edging down to 33,900 units. Against a backdrop of broadly constrained overall demand, it is hardly surprising that natural‑gas heavy‑truck sales have struggled to remain at elevated levels, and a corresponding slowdown is entirely consistent with the prevailing market conditions.

Beyond demand, another major factor influencing the natural‑gas‑powered heavy‑truck market—natural‑gas prices—was far from favorable in the final quarter of 2023. From June to August 2023, LNG prices plummeted compared with the start of the year (when January prices stood at roughly RMB 7,000 per ton), with average prices falling below RMB 4,100 per ton. Beginning in September, prices began to rebound, and by November the average had climbed to around RMB 5,400 per ton; by December, it had approached RMB 6,000 per ton, significantly eroding the economic advantages of natural‑gas‑powered heavy trucks at year’s end. In January 2024, natural‑gas prices eased slightly from December’s level, settling at about RMB 5,300 per ton. However, with demand remaining constrained, this price reduction offered only limited incentive to buyers. The recent sales of just over 6,000 natural‑gas‑powered heavy trucks over the past two months reflect the market’s genuine response to the combined pressures of weak demand and elevated gas prices.

According to an analysis by First Commercial Vehicle Network, despite a 96% year-on-year surge in January, the natural-gas heavy-truck market remains far from booming, given weak overall demand and persistently high fuel prices. A tepid, rather than red-hot, performance may be the most accurate description of the market’s outlook for this month.

From the perspective of end‑user sales regions, in January 2024, a total of 30 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions nationwide registered natural‑gas‑powered heavy trucks on the road (compared with 24 regions during the same period last year). The regional distribution remains highly uneven: resource‑rich logistics hubs such as Shanxi and Hebei accounted for the majority of January’s end‑user sales (as shown in the chart below). Among the top two regions, Shanxi and Hebei each captured more than 20% of the market, with shares of 21.9% and 20.3%, respectively. In January, Shanxi and Hebei registered 1,395 and 1,295 natural‑gas heavy trucks, respectively. Xinjiang, Shandong, Henan, and Ningxia ranked third through sixth in terms of registrations, with 456, 404, 374, and 344 units, respectively, representing 7.2%, 6.3%, 5.9%, and 5.4% of the total, respectively. Meanwhile, Inner Mongolia and Sichuan, ranking seventh and eighth, each recorded over 200 new natural‑gas heavy truck registrations in January, with shares exceeding 3% in both cases.

(Note: Others include Jilin, Jiangxi, Beijing, Guizhou, and other provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities.)

As shown in the chart, of the more than 3,000‑vehicle increase in the natural‑gas heavy‑truck market in January 2024, the bulk was captured by the regions with the highest registration volumes. Hebei alone accounted for over 1,000 additional units, while Shanxi, Shandong, and Henan each added more than 200 vehicles. In terms of growth rates, many provinces—including Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jiangsu, and Gansu—saw their January registration volumes outpace the overall growth rate of the natural‑gas heavy‑truck market. Specifically, Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, and Jiangsu recorded year‑on‑year increases of 468%, 635%, 207%, 185%, 761%, and 2,433%, respectively.

More than 2,000 vehicles delivered—securing the first sales crown of the New Year; several companies posted year-on-year growth exceeding 100%.

In January 2024, domestic sales of natural-gas-powered heavy-duty trucks reached 6,370 units, up 96% year over year. This growth rate expanded by 25 percentage points compared to the previous month (December 2023, when natural-gas heavy-duty truck sales grew 71% year over year), and represented an increase of roughly 3,100 units over January 2023—nearly double the sales volume from that period.

First Commercial Vehicle Network has observed that the cooling trend in the natural-gas heavy-truck market is also reflected in the number of manufacturers posting sales exceeding 1,000 units: from August to November 2023, five companies each recorded monthly sales above 1,000 units for four consecutive months. By December 2023, that figure had dropped to three, and in January 2024 it fell further to just two. In January, only Jiefang and Sinotruk surpassed the 1,000-unit mark, with Jiefang leading the pack at 2,380 units and capturing a 37.36% market share—securing the top spot on the January 2024 natural-gas heavy-truck sales leaderboard with a commanding performance.

January 2024 Domestic Natural Gas Heavy-Truck Terminal Sales Ranking (Unit: vehicles)

As shown in the table above, in January 2024, the natural‑gas heavy‑truck market grew by 96% year over year. However, not all manufacturers posted gains: among the top ten, eight saw sales rise while two declined; expanding the scope to the top twelve, two additional companies reported a drop. In January, Jiefang, Sinotruk, Foton, and United Heavy Trucks recorded year‑over‑year growth of 99%, 248%, 222%, and 450%, respectively—outpacing the overall natural‑gas heavy‑truck market. BAIC Heavy Trucks, which had no natural‑gas heavy‑truck sales in January last year, posted net growth. By contrast, Shaanxi Auto, Dongfeng, Dayun, and other firms achieved growth by underperforming the market. Meanwhile, the few companies that did decline all posted double‑digit drops, with the worst performer seeing a 75% year‑over‑year plunge in sales.

In terms of market share, in January four manufacturers each held more than 10% of the natural-gas heavy-truck market. The top two—FAW and SINOTRUK—each posted monthly shares exceeding 20%, with FAW and SINOTRUK selling 2,380 and 1,427 natural-gas heavy trucks, respectively, for monthly shares of 37.36% and 22.4%. Shaanxi Automobile and Dongfeng sold 901 and 794 natural-gas heavy trucks, respectively, accounting for 14.14% and 12.46% of the market. Foton and Dayun captured 8.45% and 2.59% of the market, respectively, with sales of 538 and 165 units. Meanwhile, all other manufacturers recorded sales below 100 units, each holding less than 1% of the market.

Compared with last year’s year‑end rankings, the landscape of the natural‑gas heavy‑truck market in January this year has undergone some shifts. Among last year’s top ten, the six leading brands—FAW, Sinotruk, Shaanxi Auto, Dongfeng, Foton, and Dayun—retained their positions. United Heavy‑Truck moved up one spot to ninth place, while Beiqi Heavy‑Truck surged into the January top ten from outside the year‑end top ten, landing at seventh (Beiqi Heavy‑Truck ranked 17th on the 2023 year‑end natural‑gas heavy‑truck sales list). With some companies climbing and others slipping, several firms saw their rankings decline compared with year‑end, with some even temporarily falling out of the top ten. However, it should be noted that in the first month of 2024, sales volumes for natural‑gas heavy trucks remained modest across the board, with many manufacturers reporting only a few dozen units—or even just a dozen or so—and the gaps between adjacent players were relatively narrow, leaving room for any player to close the gap.

Conclusion:

In the first month of 2024, growth in the natural-gas‑powered heavy‑truck market was largely expected. While the “strong start” did not carry particularly high momentum, a year-on-year increase of 96% in January bodes well for the sector’s performance this year. In February, natural‑gas prices continued to decline, falling to around RMB 4,100 per ton by late February—significantly more favorable than in the previous two months. However, with demand showing no clear improvement, it remains uncertain how much these lower prices will boost sales. So, will this growth persist?

Natural-gas heavy-duty trucks sold 9,592 units in February, up 49%—FAW maintained its top spot, while Sinotruk surged 266%, and BAIC/Kaiwo cracked the top ten.

Four 250 m³ marine LNG fuel tanks have been shipped from the subsidiary, Suzhou Zhibang Energy Equipment Co., Ltd.

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