16.03.2005

Conexpo opens to record first day

Conexpo opened its doors today to a strong attendee turnout, which looked set to break previous first day records. There was an absence of the hard news and announcements that previous Conexpo shows have been known for.

In fact the biggest news of the day was possibly a definitive statement by Takashi Ishida president and CEO of Kobelco Cranes that his company and Manitowoc “were not even talking about any possible OEM agreement for the supply of its crawlers outside of North America”. Many industry observers expected the two companies to announce an extension of the North American agreement to the rest of the world.
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Takashi Ishida president and CEO of Kobelco Cranes

Kobelco also said that it was attacking the American crawler crane market aggressively and intended to extend its 15 percent market share of the North American market, Kobelco claims that sales of Crawler cranes under its own name, in the USA rose by 70 percent in dollar terms and 75 percent in unit terms in 2004 and that progress was set to continue this year.

Ishida also said that Kobelco Cranes needed some strategic changes inside the company including a better balance between wheeled and crawler cranes. Commenting on its progress of selling Grove All Terrain cranes in Japan he said that so far

Kobelco had sold two units, he claimed though that this represented 10 percent of the market on a pro rata basis. And that in 2005 it was aiming for 20 percent share of this market which he said was around 60 units.
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Joe Wesley of AmQuip and his team accept a plaque for buying the 100,000th Potain crane part of a 30 million dollar order for tower cranes

Over at the Manitowoc stand some news of a $30 million order from AmQuip for Potain tower cranes was announced. The order which will be phased over a number of years. Manitowoc did not say how many units were involved or over how many years the agreement applied. One of the units in the deal will be the 100,000 Potain crane, displayed on the stand. Manitowoc also awarded a special recognition award to Coast Crane, one of its longest serving distributors and the company that brought in the Amquip order and sold the 100,000th Potain.
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Dan Goodale CEO of Coast Crane accepts a special award from Glen Tellock of Manitowoc

Ron DeFeo of Terex was in top form at his company’s press conference during which he predicted that the company would at least hit its forecasts for $5.4 to $5.6 billion dollars of revenue with 13.5 to 14 percent return on invested capital.
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Ron DeFeo CEO of Terex

He claimed that Terex are now the number three in construction equipment, just ahead of John Deere but well behind Caterpillar and Komatsu. “Over 70 percent of our revenues come from markets in which we are the number one or two he said, therefore we are essentially a niche player”

DeFeo also said that the company had “aggressively increased prices” including an increase in the crane division on the company’s order backlog “we had very few cancellations as a result so what does that tell you about the market” he said.

Genie had increased its sales in 2004 by over 40 percent; cranes were up seven percent and Telehandler sales to North America more than tripled. DeFeo said that sales of aerial lifts were expected to reach a billion dollars in 2005, making Genie the market leader “neck and neck with JLG”.
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Genie Z135/70 towers above the Silver lot at Conexpo

On the UpRight stand it appears as though the recent management change might cause an about turn on the company’s product line policy, In spite of pre show coverage of the return of its booms to production, none were on display on the stand. It is possible that the company will drop its larger boom range and concentrate on scissors and possibly smaller booms and trailers. No one from UpRight would comment on this though.