Rental: Where do you see the aerial market going in 2017?
Matthew Elvin, CEO of Xtreme Mfg. and Snorkel: 2017 will be quite a positive year. Obviously, the political changes have really given a lot of momentum to companies. Everybody you talk to is quite positive and you need a positive attitude for them to make a purchase. I would say any doubts there were last year for investing for the future have been dealt with as a result of the election. Saying that, at some point we need to see some of the promises come through and money being spent. At the moment, everybody’s planning to gear up and make it all happen which is quite exciting for us, and we’ve already seen tangible benefit. February order intake for our Xtreme telehandlers was very strong.
Rental: Last year, the buzz was about the replacement cycle. People weren’t buying lift equipment. Is that over?
Elvin: This is only a gut feel but I think the companies purchasing now probably are the ones who were more aggressive with their de-fleeting during the downturn. They’ve probably reached utilization early and now they’re actually starting to add. I think, if everything being said is true, I think we’re in line for a lot of growth over the next couple of years.
Rental: What’s going on in the global market?
Elvin: It goes region by region. Europe has always been an important market and we’re finding that to be quite good right now. Spain is now the fastest growing economy in Europe, they’re really starting to rebound.
Asia is an interesting part of the world. They’ve got a mixture of countries that have not embraced AWPs and we’ve got a presence in most of those markets. It’s my belief you’ve got to be there before adoption and start serving the brand. You can’t just show up when there’s business, you’ve got to be there to build the business. Lots of countries are still using more traditional ways of working at height, but they’ll get to a point where the regulations and requirements for productivity will align and drive demand. Then you’ve got some countries, like Singapore, where they’ve got one of the strictest regimes and also one of the highest AWP penetrations.
Everybody talks about China. We’re seeing more and more domestic suppliers moving into that space. A lot of those companies were built on the back of building excavators. With the infrastructure boom, excavators and wheel loaders were bottoming out so they’re protecting themselves by getting into the access market.
Rental: What market segments do you see the most potential in?
Elvin: There’s no doubt that oil and gas, while definitely not where it was, is coming back from its lows. Will it get back to the highs? We’re hoping it climbs up again, but from an economic standpoint, we don’t necessarily want it to recover to its highest highs because then it drives fuel prices up. A lot of the contractors involved in that type of work have their equipment already. If they didn’t dispose of it, they’re going to recommission it. Others will be adding to their fleets.
