The world's top lift truck companies
By TOM FEARE -- Modern Materials Handling, 10/1/1999
HARD NUMBERS ARE TOUGH TO come by for the powered industrial truck business. Forklift manufacturers are fiercely competitive. They guard closely their individual figures on annual orders and sales revenues.Nevertheless, MMH has put together this year's listing of the 20 largest lift truck manufacturers. But there's a difference from our previous efforts. What you see on these pages is more complete data on sales rung up last year by many of the world's biggest lift truck companies.
When the magazine originally tried to gauge this global business some time ago, we estimated world results for all of the top 20 companies listed. With some digging and surveying, we obtained actual world results on 13 of the 20 companies for this ranking.
As we discovered, even data on total units made or sold in a year are not readily dug out. As privately held firms in some cases or as lift truck companies within multinational corporations, they don't have to disclose much. Their three trade associations for the major trading areas of North America, Europe, and Asia share virtually no company-specific data with the outside world either.
In July, MMH contacted and surveyed major manufacturers and suppliers of powered industrial trucks for our ranking. Quantity-in terms of total lift truck sales revenues for 1998 or the most recent fiscal year-was the criterion establishing our top to bottom order (table).
More than half of the 20 companies ranked here finally shared their world sales figures with us, some only after repeated inquiries. Some refused to provide sales data. Some only gave us a world production total in units for all classes of industrial trucks. A few would only tell us the types of trucks made or supplied. Meantime, we asked some industry experts to examine a sample ranking we gave them. They gave us their order of companies based on extensive knowledge of suppliers' market shares.
From the survey data, from various industry sources, and from searching the Internet, we share with you our findings. Where sales are our estimate, rather than an actual reported figure, we've flagged this fact in our table.
Leading the list
Linde and Toyota are the top two companies. That's unchanged from Modern Materials Handling's original top 20 list in 1992. Linde led the field in 1991, with over $1.8 billion in projected sales. And it still does for 1998, reporting $2.5 billion in sales and 86,000 trucks. Toyota, with an estimated $1.1 billion in revenues in 1991 and over $1.8 billion reported to MMH for sales in 1998, came in as a distant second once again. But under a single brand name, Toyota, with 72,500 units sold worldwide in 1998, led all the competition.
We also have, however, are some figures for market shares of the leaders in terms of total units sold or made in 1998. These percentages are derived from the figures reported to us by individual companies; they were calculated by taking Linde's projection of 550,000 units as the total market for lift trucks in 1998. Thus, Linde with 86,000 trucks out of a total of 550,000 units, held a 15.6% share of world shipments or production, roughly speaking.
By this same crude yardstick, global market shares-in terms of total units shipped/produced last year as a percentage of 550,000 units-for a number of the other top competitors are: Toyota, with 72,500 units (a 13.2% share); Hyster/Yale (14.1%); Jungheinrich (9.6%); and Mitsu-bishi/Caterpillar (9.1%).
We don't have a true, world sales figure for 1998 in billions of dollars. There are more than the 20 companies listed here supplying global demand. However, total world sales in 1998 for our group of 20 top companies add up to $15.675 billion. Seven years ago when we last published our ranking, total sales in 1991 for the top 20 then amounted to slightly more than $9.758 billion in 1991 dollars.
Growing demand for new forklifts has been a major factor in the gain, apart from any inflationary impact on sales. Retail orders for the U.S. and Canada totaled some 95,000 units in 1991, for example. Last year-measuring just U.S. orders for lift trucks-demand was some 80,000 units higher.
U.S. sales, representing roughly 35% of the global market, continued surprisingly strong in 1998 as they pushed higher again into record territory, and helped propel improved results for those companies competing to supply American demand. The U.S. Industrial Truck Association counted a record number of U.S. retail orders totaling 174,000 powered in- dustrial trucks in ITA's classes 1 through 5 for 1998. That total is up 8.4% from the preceding year, which was a good one as well.
Mergers modify the mix
Considerable corporate consolidation marks the 1998 look to the global forklift industry compared with the 1991 listing. Mergers and restructuring-with Daewoo's fate one of the more recent question marks-continue, moreover into this year.
Germany-based multinational Linde won't be far ahead of all its competitors for long. Reason: a merger of two companies and three top brands all under one roof. NACCO Materials Handling Group-with its Hyster and Yale brands-recorded $1.713 billion in sales last year, selling 77,709 trucks for the two brands. Should this company's planned merger with Nissan (see MMH July '99 issue, page 17) go ahead as expected, then the combined firm of three major brands easily will threaten Linde's position at the top of our top 20 list. Nissan, as a separate firm as it was at the end of last year, ranks ninth in our list with an estimated $770 million in world sales. Add in the $1.713 billion for Hyster/Yale combined sales in 1998, and you get a total of $2.48 billion. That total falls just short of Linde's sales of $2.5 billion for 1998.
In terms of units produced, however, the Hyster/Yale/Nissan combination should be far ahead of Linde, with 86,000 trucks in 1998; Hyster/Yale, with 77,709 trucks last year; and Nissan, with an estimated 30,000 forklifts produced in 1998.
Several other mergers also are noteworthy for their impacts on the rankings:
Swedish BT Industries' purchase in 1997 of U.S.-based Raymond and the related Dockstocker and BT Prime-Mover brands increased total sales to the $1.1 billion level in 1998 for the merged corporate units. That put the BT combination in the fifth spot in our list.
BT subsequently bought a 45% stake this year in CESAB and set up a manufacturing partnership with this Italian firm. Thus, BT has added not only counterbalanced trucks from CESAB to its European lines, but IC-powered trucks as well. This Swedish-Italian linkup makes BT more of a full-range supplier, going beyond its prior, more limited emphasis on electric warehouse trucks. BT does claim a 20% share of the European warehouse truck market.
Finland's Sisu and Sweden's Kalmar brands are merged, meanwhile, under Finnish parent firm Partek, putting this Scandanavian multinational combination into eleventh place in our rankings. Mobile sea container handling trucks and heavy-duty forklifts are the combined firms' major strengths. Sisu/Kalmar lead the world in this seaport category, the companies claim.
Fast Facts
- Linde led in world sales in 1998 with $2.5 billion.
- Under a single brand, Toyota made the most trucks: 72,500.
- With the Sisu/Kalmar merger, these companies sell the most trucks for sea container handling.
- At 174,000 units, U.S. retail orders for lift trucks rang up a record in 1998.
- BT Industries' 45% stake in CESAB and partnership with the Italian firm makes BT more of a full-range supplier in Europe.
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