“Sales of construction equipment last year were affected by weak economic growth worldwide and low global prices for many commodities,” says David Phillips, managing director. “These factors had a knock-on effect for the demand for most types of machinery, particularly equipment used in mining and other extractive industries. However, with commodity prices rising as 2016 went on, sales picked up in a number of key markets.”
By 2020, the firm believes global unit sales will continue to rise until it reaches a peak of 810,321, followed by a slight decline in 2021 to 809,687, representing a 25-percent increase in volume.
Sales figures, however, are expected to reach $89.3 billion by 2020, a 28 percent increase over the $69.8 billion seen in 2016. Off-Highway Research says this will be driven by renewed sales of high-value equipment such as crawler excavators and rigid dump trucks.
For North America, the firm forecasts actual growth in 2017, compared to the 3-percent drop off last year. The same is said for Japan, but Off-Highway expects Europe, which also declined by 3 percent, to remain flat for the year.
Unit sales in North America last year reached 158,925, the highest among the regions tracked by the firm. That figure is expected to reach 168,600 this year. The biggest increase Off-Highway shows comes in 2018, when unit sales are expected to increase 9 percent to 183,785. Growth is forecast to continue in 2019 (199,150 units) and 2020 (209,910 units), until a large decline in 2021 to 196,900 units.
Off-Highway Research forecasts this year the Chinese market will see a return to growth, citing last year as the low point in a five-year cycle of “steeply falling sales.” The growth rate, expected to reach 13 percent, will only be about 30 percent of the equipment sales experienced in 2010 and 2011.
