26.12.2024

How about 2025?

2024 fading fast as we rush towards 2025, it seems only yesterday we were celebrating the new millennium!

Overall, 2024 has not been a bad year for business, at least based on feedback we have received, coupled with conversations I have had during the year, and the result of the surveys we conduct. The most common response I get is – “it was a lot better than I /we expected,” or “Not the greatest year ever, but not bad at all." But – given all the uncertainties and changes now underway around the world what do we expect for 2025?

At the end of every year as I review the preliminary results of our financial year (end of October) with Rob, our accountant, I say something along the lines of, “yes it was a pretty good year all things considered, but next year looks like it will be a tough one!” His response is typically “You said that last year, and the year before, and in fact most years at this stage!”
It is true, and is probably down to me preferring to expect the worst and then be pleasantly surprised when we do better than that?

So, what of 2025?
Well, it does look like it will be more challenging, we already see it in the careful way people are finalising their budgets, understandable given the current uncertainty. But as an article in the UK’s Sunday Times pointed out this week - with a list of 52 pieces of good news from 2024 - there are also many reasons to be cheerful, even optimistic.

Looking at the industries that impact the crane, aerial work platform and telehandler market there are some decent underlying drivers, such as the need in dozens of countries for more housing, as well as new and replacement infrastructure, added to the growing realisation that environmentally friendly power generation is increasingly cost-effective compared to fossil fuels, as helping the environment.

But over and above all that the markets we cover rely on confidence, availability of funding and a reason to upgrade to new equipment. As a customer once told me, “There is no point me spending a few hundred grand on new RT 500s – when a new one is almost exactly the same as my 10 year old model! Better to get a new paint job” Thankfully the days of getting away with minimal new product development are largely behind us. New cranes, platforms and to a lesser extent telehandlers, bristle with new technology, which makes them more efficient, safer, cleaner and less costly to run.
So, having waxed lyrical for a few hundred words – what do you think?

Let us know in our simple Poll which you can see above.

And regardless of your thoughts, I wish you a wonderful year in 2025.