Q1 2026 brought a softer overall total to the truck trailer segment of the Register of Approved Vehicles (RAV), with a notable year-on-year decline in total approvals sitting alongside a reshuffling of momentum across the mid-tier field. Vawdrey continued building on its established lead, Howard Porter extended its upward trajectory, and Jamieson recorded the dataset’s most significant year-on-year contraction as a partial quarter-on-quarter recovery fell well short of restoring prior-year levels.
Read on for our full breakdown of Q1 2026 truck trailer approvals and the brand movements shaping the segment.
A Note on Methodology
This report is based on Register of Approved Vehicles (RAV) entries, which reflect regulatory approvals rather than retail sales. Each approval represents a make appearing on the Register, and the data is reported at a quarterly level. We compare Q1 2026 directly with Q1 2025 as our primary year-on-year lens, drawing on quarter-on-quarter comparisons against Q4 2025 where they add meaningful context. Major manufacturers are reported individually, while the highly fragmented remainder of the market is grouped under ‘Other Makes’. Market share figures are calculated as each manufacturer’s share of total RAV entries in the relevant quarter.
All data is refreshed with each quarterly report, so figures within any given edition reflect the most current available snapshot. As such, some metrics may shift quarter-over-quarter as these refinements are applied.
Retain Media provides this data “as is” for informational purposes only and accepts no liability for decisions made based on this reporting. Users are encouraged to use this data as one of multiple data points in their market analysis.
Truck Trailers
Q1 2026 saw 3,641 truck trailer entries recorded on the RAV, down from 3,923 in Q1 2025, a decline of 282 entries or 7.2% year-on-year. The market also softened on a quarter-on-quarter basis, easing a further 327 entries from the 3,968 recorded in Q4 2025. The softer result suggests the quieter conditions observed through the back half of 2025 have carried into the new year rather than reversed, with the overall market yet to find a clear upward gear.
Top Manufacturers
Across the top of the market, the most telling dynamic was not simply who grew or contracted, but how the named-brand tier and the broader pool of smaller manufacturers moved relative to each other. Other makes held its absolute volume almost entirely flat, with entries moving from 1,582 in Q1 2025 to 1,598 in Q1 2026. That near-stable result, set against a named-brand tier absorbing the vast majority of the market’s overall decline, was enough to lift its share from 40.3% to 43.9%. Holding its ground while several named manufacturers stepped back proved sufficient for the group to expand its share without recording any meaningful growth of its own.
Against that backdrop, Vawdrey’s performance stands out as the clearest positive in the top five. Entries grew from 409 in Q1 2025 to 435 in Q1 2026, a gain of 26 approvals or 6.4%, with share lifting from 10.4% to 11.9%. We observed Vawdrey as the only manufacturer in the top five to have grown both volume and share year-on-year, consolidating its position as the field’s dominant named brand in a period when several of its peers moved in the opposite direction.
Maxitrans continued its gradual retreat, with entries falling from 298 in Q1 2025 to 275 in Q1 2026, a decline of 23 approvals or 7.7%. Share held flat at 7.6% in both periods, meaning Maxitrans maintained its relative standing even as its absolute volumes softened. The gap between Vawdrey and Maxitrans in entry terms widened further in Q1 2026, continuing a divergence that has been building across recent quarters.
Further down the top five, Howard Porter and Bruce Rock Engineering moved in sharply different directions. Howard Porter grew from 131 entries in Q1 2025 to 144 in Q1 2026, a gain of 13 approvals or 9.9%, with share lifting from 3.3% to 4.0%. We interpreted this as further evidence of Howard Porter’s consistent upward trajectory, with its share expansion coming against the backdrop of a contracting overall market and placing it as one of the upper tier’s more reliable growth stories.
Bruce Rock Engineering told the opposite story, with entries falling from 209 in Q1 2025 to 143 in Q1 2026, a drop of 66 approvals or 31.6%, and share contracting from 5.3% to 3.9%. Our analysis flags this as the most pronounced decline in the top five and a notable step back for a manufacturer that had previously tracked greater stability.
The Rest of the Top Brands
Beneath the top five, the picture was one of modest but broadly positive movement among the mid-tier’s established names, set against a sharp deterioration for one of the segment’s previously stronger performers.
Among the growers, FWR delivered the most notable year-on-year gain in proportional terms, with entries rising from 88 in Q1 2025 to 97 in Q1 2026, a 10.2% increase, and share edging from 2.2% to 2.7%. Lionel Moore followed a similar path, growing from 93 entries to 99 and lifting share from 2.4% to 2.7%. Neither movement was dramatic in absolute terms, but both reflect a steady accumulation of ground that positions each brand slightly more firmly in the mid-tier.
AAA Trailers added four entries year-on-year to reach 113 in Q1 2026, with share nudging from 2.8% to 3.1%, a result that confirms its consistency rather than signalling any acceleration. FTE Trailers held its position with minimal movement, recording 73 entries in Q1 2026 against 72 in Q1 2025, a slight shift that nonetheless reflects a degree of stability in a quarter where several brands experienced decline.
Cimcau was the standout performer in this part of the field, growing from 71 entries in Q1 2025 to 88 in Q1 2026, a rise of 17 approvals or 23.9%, with share expanding from 1.8% to 2.4%. We observed this as part of a consistent pattern of incremental gains across recent periods, with Cimcau establishing itself as one of the more reliably growing names in the mid-tier and putting clear distance between its current position and where it sat a year ago.
Not all mid-tier names moved in a positive direction. Krueger recorded a meaningful year-on-year contraction, with entries falling from 108 in Q1 2025 to 73 in Q1 2026, a decline of 32.4%. That places Krueger’s annual fall as the third-largest in the dataset behind Jamieson and Bruce Rock Engineering, and it represents a notable retreat for a brand that had been tracking more steadily in earlier periods.
Jamieson recorded the most significant year-on-year decline in the dataset, with entries falling from 213 in Q1 2025 to 91 in Q1 2026, a contraction of 57.3%. That volume in Q1 2025 would have placed Jamieson as the third-largest named manufacturer in the segment behind only Other Makes and Vawdrey. By Q1 2026, it had fallen to ninth, a rank deterioration that underscores the scale of the brand’s retreat over the period. Share dropped from 5.4% to 2.5%, a fall large enough to effectively move Jamieson from a mid-tier brand with genuine scale to one sitting closer to the lower end of the named-brand field.
While Jamieson’s entries recovered from the 23 recorded in Q4 2025, the Q1 2026 result remains a fraction of where the brand was tracking twelve months earlier. Q2 2026 will be the more meaningful test of whether that quarter-on-quarter improvement represents the beginning of a sustained recovery or a stabilisation at a significantly lower baseline.
Market Fragmentation and the Role of 'Other Makes'
The truck trailer market in Q1 2026 saw the long tail of smaller manufacturers hold and modestly extend its collective share, reversing the consolidation trend observed at points during 2025. Other Makes accounted for 43.9% of all approvals in Q1 2026, up from 40.3% in Q1 2025, even as the group’s absolute entry count held virtually unchanged from the figures recorded a year earlier.
That share expansion was driven entirely by volume declines among named manufacturers, most notably Jamieson, Bruce Rock Engineering, and Krueger, whose combined contractions outweighed the gains recorded by Vawdrey, Howard Porter, AAA Trailers, Lionel Moore, FWR, and Cimcau. The result is a market where fragmentation is deepening not through new entrants in the long tail, but through established named brands retreating from share they had previously held.
Emerging Names Building a Foothold
Beyond the established top 10, Q1 2026 produced several year-on-year growth stories worth noting. Nts grew from 7 entries in Q1 2025 to 39 in Q1 2026, a 457.1% increase that, while coming off a low base, points to genuine expansion in approval activity.
Barker Trailers moved from 14 entries to 38 over the same period, a 171.4% year-on-year lift that places it firmly in the conversation as an emerging presence. ABS Trailquip, absent from the RAV in Q1 2025, recorded 27 approvals in Q1 2026, marking its arrival as a new named entity in the data.
Trust Retain Media for Industry-Leading Insights
Q1 2026 truck trailer RAV data shows a market navigating a softer year-on-year environment. Vawdrey and Howard Porter extended their positions as the upper tier’s clearest growth stories, while Jamieson, Bruce Rock Engineering, and Krueger recorded the quarter’s sharpest declines, returning substantial share to Other makes. Nts and Barker Trailers were among the emerging names continuing to build quiet momentum further down the field. Q2 2026 will be the sharper test of whether that divergence continues to widen or whether the market’s retreaters begin to close the gap.
For deeper context across adjacent trailer categories and other heavy vehicle markets, our wider suite of market reports tracks the brand-level movements shaping Australia’s road transport landscape.
