John Deere remains the tractor brand of choice for UK farmers with green and yellow machines accounting for more than a quarter of all tractor sales.
The latest brand-specific figures for UK tractor sales from the Agricultural Engineers Association (AEA), which cover the 2020 year, reveal John Deere accounted for 26.5% of the 11,935 new tractors registered that year.
This is down slightly from the 2019 figures when John Deere tractors made up 28.1% of all sales, which stood at 13,545 tractors.
AEA agricultural economist, Stephen Howarth, said: “As always, data are released after a one year delay due to competition law restrictions; figures for 2021 are due to be published in early 2023.”
The figures reveal the second most popular brand of tractor was New Holland, which represented 17.8% of sales – up slightly on the year before when it held 17.1% of the market share.
The third most popular brand of tractors with 13.2% of market share was Massey Ferguson, followed by Case IH at 9.2% and Fendt at 7.5% – this is up from 12.3%, 8.9% and 6.8% respectively.
Valtra’s market share remained the same at 5.5% of sales, while Kubota and McCormick enjoyed slight increases in market share to 6.6% and 0.9% – up from 6.5% and 0.8% respectively.
Claas’s market share dropped from 5.7% to 3.8%, while JCB’s share of the market fell to 1.6%, from 2.1% in 2019.
Landini was the least popular brand of tractors accounting for 0.4% of sales in 2020, or 51 machines.
Meanwhile, figures released last week by the AEA reveal continued recovery in the Scottish tractor market last year following a Covid-induced slowdown.
Sales of new agricultural tractors, over 50 horsepower (hp), in Scotland were up 17.1% in 2021 to 1,466.
This accounted for 12.2% of total UK sales, which stood at 12,107, representing a 15.8% increase on 2020.
Sales increased in every region of the UK with the exception of Yorkshire & Humberside, where sales decreased by 0.9% to 757 tractors.
The region experiencing the biggest growth in sales was the East Midlands, with sales up 40.7% to 764 tractors, followed by Northern Ireland, where sales were up 37.4% to 525 tractors.
John Deere unveils driver-less tractor at US technology event