Caterpillar  and Komatsu worldwide dealer sales shrank for the third month in a row in February. Caterpillar makes a nifty report available to the public that details the change in dealer retail sales based on a monthly survey. Results are averaged over three months to portray a trend. The latest report dipped below the zero line for the third month in a row. Sales were down in the company’s North America (-11% in January and -12% in January) and Asia/Pacific regions (-12% in January and -26% in February) for three months in a row as well. The company’s Europe, Africa, Middle East territory had been bumping along at zero growth since June of last year, but dipped into negative territory in February (-9%). Caterpillar...

The 2013 construction equipment market will benefit from improvements in housing, continued high levels of demand from the energy sector and improving non-residential construction investment by manufacturers. Overall I expect 2013 growth of 5.4 percent compared with 2012. I expect the slowdown that began in the second half of 2012 to extend into the first half of 2013 and most of the 2013 growth to occur in the second half. I believe rental companies will continue their aggressive re-fleeting in 2013, however, most of those purchases will be for aerial platforms. The first half of 2013 is likely to be down 5 percent to 7 percent compared with the first half of 2012 because of difficult comparisons.  The first half of 2012 grew at a...

Just when it looked as if the dog days of this record hot summer were passing too slowly, and I was trying to decide if maybe Al Gore was right after all about global warming, things got really interesting. Unfortunately, most of the interesting stuff is related to emission regulations and not new methods to move dirt. But it is interesting and maybe revolutionary, as well. In my opinion, it could be a game changer for JCB, and will change the playing field for the companies competing against it in the small and medium product ranges. The announcement is that JCB can conform to Tier 4 Interim regulations through the use of its patented in-cylinder technologies alone. That basically means the company has an extremely efficient cylinder and...

Purchase price may be just the beginning of the added cost U.S. EPA diesel emissions regulations bring to construction equipment. Equipment dealers have told us that only 20% or 30% of their customers are aware of the Tier 4 final regulations, according to a preliminary survey just completed. Dealers expect pre-Tier 4 machines to become more valuable. Prices of those machines are seen to increase as much as 10% and some models as high as 15%. Machine residual values (the amount to be paid off at the end of a lease or long term rental) are expected to decline which will mean lease and rental rates are likely to increase. Into the tenuous U.S. construction-market recovery comes Tier-4-interim equipment with exhaust filters that depend on...