Total Lift Truck Market
The global lift truck market grew by 10.2% in 2018 to 1.5 million units. All lift truck classes saw gains with the largest gains coming from Class III products - Electric Motor Hand or Hand-Rider Trucks.
US factory shipments of forklift trucks rose 9.29% from 212,002 total units in 2017 to 231,696 total units in 2018. Class 4 and 5 forklift (pneumatic tire and cushion tire internal combustion engine lift trucks) shipments in the US saw the largest percentage gain, 13.27%, from 2017.
Hyster-Yale Group
Total sales were up 10% over 2017 to $3.17 billion.
Net income, however, has been down significantly over the last few years and fell an additional 30% from 2017 to 2018, landing at $34.3 million. Hyster-Yale's Nuvera fuel cell business unit represented negative $27.9 million of the company's consolidated net income. The Lift Truck and Bolzoni Attachments segments had positive net income.
Hyster-Yale's total lift truck shipments were up 9% to 101,900 units worldwide.
During 2018 Hyster-Yale purchased a controlling interest in Maximal forklifts, a Chinese forklift manufacturer, which helped to contribute $48.9 million in revenue in 2018.
Furthmore, Hyster-Yale has reiterated their commitment to independent dealers because of their distinct competitive advantage comprised of local knowledge and entrepreneurial behavior.
Jungheinrich - distributed in North America by Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift America Inc. dealerships
Jungheinrich's total incoming orders were up 6.1% to 131,000 units in 2018 over 2017. 2018 revenue grew to 3.796 billion euros, a gain of 10.5% over 2017.
Jungheinrich expects the economic environment to be overall positive during 2019.
KION Group - maker of Linde and Baoli forklifts in the US
Total revenue grew by 5.2% from 2017 to 7.995 billion euros. Net income on the other hand was down 4.9% to 401.6 million euros.
KION Group's North America sales grew 17.3% during 2018 to 1.486 billion euros despite negative currency effects.
KION Group noted a strong increase in overall sales of their electric powered trucks which accounted for 80% of total orders.
Toyota Material Handling
Toyota Material Handling, a subsidiary of Toyota Industries Corp. reported 2018 fiscal year revenue of $11.522 billion.
Effective February 8th, 2019, Toyota Industries North America purchased Hoist Lift Trucks, a manufacturer of high capacity lift trucks, container handling machines, and yard spotter trucks. Toyota will use the acquisition to expand their Toyota Heavy Duty line.
Toyota offers very little information otherwise as to the performance of their material handling business.
Mitsubishi Logisnext Co. - manufacturer of Mitsubishi, UniCarriers, and Cat forklifts
Has not yet released results for fiscal year 2018, which for Mitsubishi ended on March 31, 2018.
Other major forklift manufacturers such as Crown and Clark are not publicly traded and so do not share details of their financial performance.
