The Top 20 lift truck companies

Many, but not all, of the leading manufacturers saw yearly sales revenues rise to new levels last year as global demand continued to climb.

By -- Modern Materials Handling, 10/1/2000

For many manufacturers of powered lift trucks, last year was a good one. Modern Materials Handling magazine's latest exclusive survey of the world's top 20 companies, which ranks them by their global sales totals for calendar year 1999, finds that:

• Linde, world leader in sales in 1998 and once again in 1999, had a very good year, indeed. Headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, this multinational firm rang up a total of $3 billion in revenues from its various lift truck brands in 1999. That's a $500 million gain from $2.5 billion in 1998 sales, or a 20% advance. And this sizeable increase was far more than enough for Linde to keep the top spot in our ranking.

• Toyota's year wasn't so good, however. Both sales revenues as well as the numbers of forklift units that Toyota sold fell in year-to-year comparisons. The Aichi, Japan-based firm racked up $1.7 billion in total world sales for 1999. That total is nearly 7% below its world sales of $1.826 billion a year earlier. Total units sold globally in 1999 also dropped. They fell from 72,500 units in 1998 to 68,000 in 1999. Weakness in the company's domestic market in Japan last year, it appears, and the slowdown in Asian economies, in general, pulled down Toyota's results. This sales revenue decline kept the company in second place in our latest ranking, but tied with its Hyster/Yale competitor, NACCO.

• NACCO Material Handling Group (Hyster and Yale brands) held its ground in revenues. World sales were relatively flat, off $13 million from 1998, for a global total in 1999 of $1.7 billion for Hyster and Yale lift trucks. That total was enough to keep NACCO and its two major brands up near the top of this latest ranking, tied with Toyota, and well ahead of Jungheinrich, which again held onto the fourth spot. Jungheinrich saw sales rise 6.6% to $1.336 billion.

• Among other companies in the top half of our ranking of 20 manufacturers, five firms (BT Industries, Crown, Manitou, Mitsubishi/Caterpillar, and TCM) all did better in 1999 than a year earlier, as noted below.

Exclusive survey

Hard numbers for 1999 sales were again hard to come by, as was the case for 1998 figures. Individual company data on annual revenues and total units shipped are closely guarded.

But we did obtain hard sales numbers for all of the firms in the upper half of our ranking. And we got world sales data from 5 manufacturers in the lower half of our list. Otherwise, we have estimated sales totals for the remainder of the 20 companies shown.

No deal, then a big deal

A year ago we thought that this year's ranking would show changes among the leading three or four companies-but not for the reasons of zooming or plummeting sales, as proved to be the case. Instead, merger activities were expected to drive the shifts.

In October 1999, the proposed merger of the Nissan brand into NACCO was a deal still on the table and valued at $300 million or more. In fact, the planned linkup of Nissan with Hyster and Yale would have threatened Linde's top spot in world sales.

But then last spring the merger partners said, in effect, that there was "no deal." They couldn't agree on the terms of the transaction and pull together a combined company.

But one really big deal-with the "b" in big representing almost a billion dollars-did succeed in 2000. And it surely will alter our top 20 ranking in next year's report.

This deal is the merger of Toyota and BT Industries under Toyoda Automatic Loom Works Ltd, the Toyota forklift brand's parent firm. Toyoda now holds a controlling stake of just over 97% of BT's shares. Toyoda's purchase of BT has been valued at about $890 million.

As a result of this friendly merger (it was agreed to by BT's top execs), it appears that a Toyota/BT combination next year easily will be in the running for a second place finish in our rankings. Or the combination may possibly come in first, bumping aside Linde.

Assuming Toyota's world sales and those of BT Industries don't change appreciably between 1999 and 2000, the combined total for the two companies would be more than $2.9 billion.

Meantime, several other mergers or takeovers have shaken up the who's who of global lift truck brands.

Late last year, Komatsu Forklift U.S.A. acquired a controlling interest in Kalmar AC. The latter had been the U.S. arm of Sweden's Kalmar.

This Swedish company, however, continues to be a part of Finland's Partek. By merger in 1998, Kalmar and Sisu were joined under Partek's ownership. The two companies are a dominant force in container-handling vehicles around the world.

Within the U.S., the merged Kalmar AC and Komatsu companies continue to do business as independent lift truck brands under Komatsu's leadership.

Halla America trucks now are sold under the Hyundai brand name. Hyundai Heavy Industries agreed late in 1999 to manage the assets of Halla Heavy Industries. Part of Halla manufactured forklifts for both domestic and export markets. Hyundai has made trucks only for the domestic market in South Korea. So now Halla's Eumsung, South Korea plant builds lift trucks for the Hyundai brand for overseas users.

Some bad news

South Korea will also be an increasing focus for one U.S.-based lift truck maker. Amid last spring's flurry of merger/no merger activity, one firm broke its bad news. In mid-April Clark Material Handling again said it was in financial trouble. This time Clark filed for Chapter 11 protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

By the end of this year, the Lexington, Ky. based company says it will shut down its main plant in this U.S. city. Production and assembly will shift overseas in several ways: To its acquired Samsung operations in South Korea and to Clark production facilities in Germany; meanwhile some U.S. manufacturing moves to Clark's plant in Alabama.

Perhaps surprisingly, Clark reported better annual sales results in 1999 than it had in 1998. The Clark response to our survey for last year's revenues: $540 million. That compares with $500 million in Clark sales a year earlier, for an 8% gain.

Yet, with a global playing field crowded with so many manufacturers and too much capacity in the views of some observers, this was Clark's time to tighten its belt, apparently.

Several other global players in our top 20 also reported sales gains near or better than Clark's 8% increase. Mitsubishi/Caterpillar world results were up about 10% in total dollars for 1999 against 1998 results. BT did about 9% better than a year earlier. Crown's figures were up 4.3% above the 1998 totalTCM's gain was 6%.

Atlet, the Gothenburg, Sweden-based firm, matched Mitsubishi/Caterpillar's 10% sales gain on the strength of the 6,500 forklift trucks Atlet sold last year. But at total sales of $275 million, Atlet's revenues are only a third that of the larger Sagamihara, Japan based company and its two top brands.

Manitou, which competes solely in the rough terrain forklift business, saw its revenues rise sharply: up 13.8% to $700 million in 1999 over 1998. The company sold 12,000 of these heavy-duty trucks last year.