WHICH UK REGION SAW THE STRONGEST TRACTOR SALES GROWTH IN 2021?

Last week the AEA told us that agricultural tractor registrations in 2021 recovered the ground lost in 2020 and were at a similar level to that seen in 2019.

Now the Association has provided details of trends in registrations by power and region.

According to Stephen Howarth, agricultural economist at the AEA, there was solid year-on-year growth across the power range, except among the most powerful machines, although there were some fluctuations in narrow power bands, which may have been due to changes in the range of models available.

Stephen said, "High-powered tractors performed better than the rest of the market in 2020, with registrations up on 2019, so they were still above their pre-2020 level. In other power bands, the trend since 2019 was more mixed, although there was also solid growth at the lower end of the range.

"With slower year-on-year growth among higher-powered machines and strong growth at the lower end of the power range, the average power of agricultural tractors dropped back to a similar level to 2019. The 2021 average was 166.3hp, well below the 171hp recorded in 2020 but similar to the 166.0hp in 2019. Barring 2020, the average has been fairly stable over the last four years, although it is probably too early to say whether the decades-long trend of steadily rising average power has come to an end."

At regional level, there were year-on-year increases in every part of the UK apart from Yorkshire, where registrations of agricultural tractors in 2021 were a handful lower than in 2020.

Stephen added, "Strongest growth was in the East Midlands and Northern Ireland, both of which registered over a third more machines last year. Most other regions saw increases of between 10% and 25%, compared with 2020."