Yellow Table
NEWSREPORT
13
april 2015
international
construction
Equipment top 50
The global construction
equipment industry
endured another tough
year in 2014 as revenues
slid again and some
manufacturersmade
changes to their portfolios.
Chris Sleight
reports.
T
he world’s 50 largest construction
equipment manufacturers saw their
revenues fall -2.6% last year to US$ 159
billion. As ever, a few currency effects had an
impact – although nothing like the changes due
to theYen’s depreciation in last year’sYellowTable
– but by and large, the downturn seemed due to
weakermarket conditions.
In terms of the rankings, Caterpillar and
Komatsu retained their no.1 and no.2 positions,
as they have done over the 13-year history of
the Yellow Table. The gaps between them and
their nearest competitors in terms of revenues
mean this is not likely to change anytime soon.
However, it is interesting tonote thatCaterpillar’s
share of theTop50’s revenues fell from19.0% in
last year’s edition to 17.8% in this year’s Yellow
Table, which is based on 2014 revenues.
This was due to a near US$ 2.8 billion drop
in the value of finished equipment the company
sold last year, which reflected theweakness in the
global mining industry – a sector Caterpillar is
exposed to.
Elsewhere in the Top 10, Volvo and Hitachi
swapped places compared to last year, although
there is very little in it. Just US$ 5 million in
revenues separates the two companies. Terex and
Liebherr also traded places, but again the gap is
small.
Much more significant is XCMG’s move into
theTop 10, which establishes it as China’s largest
construction equipment manufacturer, ahead of
Sany and Zoomlion. The company’s three-place
rise reflects the increase in revenues its acquisition
ofGermany’s Schwing has given it.
ButXCMGwas theonlyChinesemanufacturer
to see an improvement last year. The rest of the
country’smajor players saw their revenues fall last
year, and by and large this meant a drop in their
standings in the Yellow Table. Indeed, Chinese
By country
By region
US
Japan
China
Sweden
Germany
SouthKorea
Finland
UK
Italy
France
This year
Last year
manufacturers were generally the
heaviest fallers – most notably
Shantui, which was down eight
places, and XGMA, which dropped
six.
This meant the share of revenues
attributable toChinesemanufacturers
fell from 14.4% in last year’s Yellow
Table to 13.3% in this year’s edition.
At the peak in the 2012YellowTable,
based on 2011 revenues, the Chinese
share came to 16.9%.
But of course, when there are fallers in the
YellowTable, there also have to be those that rise
up the rankings. In terms of national groupings,
the Japanese,Swedish,GermanandSouthKorean
manufacturers improved their standings last year.
As far as individual companies go, most only
moved up by one place or so. However, towards
the foot of the table, there were sold gains for
Takeuchi and Furukawa, up four and five places
respectively, while mid-ranking Tadano was up
three positions, as was XCMGup in the top 10.
In fact, it looked like a good year for the
Japanesemanufacturers in general. As well as the
strong gains for Furukawa,Tadano andTakeuchi,
Sakai Heavy Industries joined the global Top 50
for the first time in slot no. 49. And of the 11
Japanesemanufacturers in theYellowTable, eight
improved their standings compared to last year.
Another general point is that companies in the
light/utility end of the construction equipment
market also seemed to dowell last year.
This spans numerous machine types, some of
which are not particularly closely related to each
other.
However, there were improvements for access
and telehandler specialists JLG and Manitou,
as well as Genie, which is contained within
Terex. Also on the rise were compact equipment
specialists like Wacker Neuson, Kubota and
Takeuchi.
PERCENTAGE SHARE
>
YELLOW
TABLE
30.9%
22.7%
13.3%
7.0%
8.0%
5.1%
2.5%
2.5%
2.4%
2.1%
22.3%
14.4%
6.9%
7.7%
5.0%
3.2%
2.6%
2.3%
2.0%
31.2%
NorthAmerica
31.3%
Europe
26.7%
Asia
41.4%
RoW
0.6%
