Last year was not kind to many suppliers of lift trucks. The global market declined nearly 12 percent in terms of total lift trucks sold. The greatest pain was felt in the North Americas, which was off 14 percent. Meanwhile, Asia was off just 1 percent and Europe posted a 7 percent increase in lift truck sales.

And as would be expected, revenue at the 20 largest lift truck suppliers in the world reflected these conditions. But not all felt the pain equally.

For example, Linde, which maintains its #1 ranking, actually showed a modest increase in total sales of nearly 7% during 2001. Two factors certainly contributed here. To begin, Linde was able to increase its global market share from 18.5 to 20 percent, according to the company. And with less than 4% of its total sales in North America, Linde was largely insulated from the weakest lift truck market in the world.

By contrast, the NACCO Materials Handling Group, which posts 75% of its sales in North America, suffered more than a 20% decline in lift truck revenue in 2001.

Types of trucks each company supplies certainly had an impact too. The single hardest hit segment was internal combustion trucks in the Americas, off by 17 percent. Hit nearly as hard with a decline of 14 percent were electric rider trucks in the Americas. Walkie trucks in the Americas and Asia were off 11 percent.

On the upside, walkie trucks in Europe were the hottest segment with a 12 percent increase in sales while narrow-aisle trucks were up seven percent in Asia and three percent in Europe. In other words, last year's results for lift truck suppliers were affected in large part by their dependence on the various geographic markets and types of trucks they supply.

Interestingly enough, 11 of the 20 landed in the same position on our list as they held the previous year. Among the top six, only Toyota lost a spot, slipping from a tie with Linde for number one to an extremely close number two. However, Toyota holds a substantial lead over NACCO, which is third again this year. Jungheinrich, with less than 1 percent of its sales in North America, came in fourth with flat sales compared to 2000. Mitsubishi/Caterpillar and Crown, numbers five and six, respectively, both suffered significant declines but held onto their positions from the previous year.

Rounding out the top ten were Nissan, Manitou, Komatsu and TCM. While they stayed together as a grouping year to year, the first three traded positions with Nissan and Manitou each moving up a spot, to #7 and #8, respectively. Komatsu dropped two spots to #9. It's worth pointing out, however, that less than $30 million in sales separate the three. A year ago, that difference was $122 million with Komatsu in the lead.

Starting out the next bracket of ten is Clark. Still, the only lift truck supplier operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Clark sold off its Blue Giant line to TBM Holdings late in 2000. That move plus a weak U.S. market brought the company's total sales down to $329 million for 2001.

The next seven spots are once again occupied by Nichiyu, Partek, Daewoo, JCB, Merlo, Atlet and Hyundai. Due to corrected reporting numbers this year, Atlet dropped to #17. Despite this adjustment, Atlet actually had a good year with revenue up 12 percent due to a strong first half that more than offset declines the rest of the year.

New to the list this year is Tailift, a Taiwan-based supplier of electric and internal combustion engine counterbalanced lift trucks that holds the 19^th spot. In addition to lift trucks, the company makes machine tools. Cesab, the Italian supplier that had been on the list previously, was removed because it is part of BT Industries, which is now a division of Toyota. And rounding out our list is Drexel, as it was last year.