At the start of any year it is usual to get the runes out to divine the new year’s forklift market outlook but given that it is also the start of a new decade let’s be more ambitious and look a bit beyond one year.
This article was first published in the February 1st 2020 issue of Warehouse & Logistics News, subscribe to the magazine by clicking here.
Early feedback from BITA members shows that while half of responding members to a survey believed market conditions would remain much as they were during 2019, a successful year capping a long 10-year bull run market that saw unit sales double to over 35,000 in 2018, 40% of responders were less optimistic about this year’s prospects than they were six months ago. This contrasts sharply with the BITA summer survey when just 11% of respondents cited a lack of optimism for their 2020 prospects. Whether it will prove to be justified or not, Brexit is blamed for weakening market sentiment.
For 2020, Oxford Economics, who work with BITA on forklift truck market outlooks, predicts flat markets, but there are certain sectors of the market that will grow, particularly the warehouse truck sector where bookings are predicted to grow by 1.4%. The counterbalance truck market, however, did struggle in 2019, where orders fell 3.6% in the first nine months. For the whole of 2019 the predicted fall in orders is 5.3% but such market softness may not continue to affect this year’s sales, if Briggs Equipment’s optimism is any guide.
Briggs Equipment has a commanding presence in the UK forklift market and has just confirmed its optimism by ordering 272 new Hyster and Yale counterbalance trucks to boost its total short-term hire fleet to over 5,500. The £6.1m investment will give it increased capability to respond efficiently to a wide range of requests received on a daily basis. Steve Fog, Briggs head of short-term hire, said: “We are expecting 2020 to be another extremely busy year for our fleet as we continue to increase our capability and reputation across a number of new industries and market sectors. The feedback we are receiving from customers is extremely positive.”
Reference was made to expected growth in the warehouse truck sector but one branch of that, namely autonomous trucks, is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.5% between 2019 and 2027, according to the latest market research post by Credence Inc. This will be driven by the adoption of AI in the MHE market worldwide, to cope with the rapid technological advances in transport and construction industries. The use of autonomous forklifts will rise owing to their benefits over other forklifts, such as more efficiency, productivity and speed. Some of the world’s leading forklift companies have already positioned themselves in this market but we can expect mergers and acquisitions to continue as a key strategy, along with new product launches.
Bill Redmond, Features Editor
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