07.05.2025

Slow but encouraging start at Manitowoc

Manitowoc Crane, the owner of the Grove, Potain, National Crane and MGX brands has reported a softer first quarter, but at the same time saw a strong pick up in order intake.

Revenues for the three months to the end of March were $470.9 million, down 4.9 percent on the same period last year. Revenues from services - non new crane sales – totalled $160.6 million, up 10.6 percent on the year.

order intake in the quarter improved 10.1 percent to $610.3 million, with a surge in new orders for Potain tower cranes creating a backlog/order book at the end of the first quarter of $797.8 million, 18 percent lower than at this time last year.

The company made a Pre-tax loss for the quarter of $8.8 million compared to a profit in the first quarter of 2024 of $6.4 million, due to lower volumes with higher engineering, sales & admin expense along with a $5 million write off in other income, compared to a $700,000 contribution last year.

Chief executive Aaron Ravenscroft said: “Our first quarter results exceeded our expectations. We began to see signs of a turnaround in our Europe tower crane business with machine orders up 68 percent year over year, marking the third consecutive quarter of growth. Our non-new machine sales for the first quarter grew 11 percent year over year to $161 million. Although the tariff situation remains fluid, our team continues to find different ways to mitigate the impact and, therefore, we are maintaining our guidance.”

Vertikal Comment

An interesting one in that the first quarter of 2024 comparator was also sluggish, with similar declines, BUT the order intake improvement was double last year’s pick up – so promising, while the steep rise in tower crane orders is of particular interest.

The bottom line is probably the greatest disappointment but if it's focusing on the mid to long term it may well be worth it. The move to increase the percentage of sales that are not related to shifting new machines makes good sense, in that it usually carries higher margins and has an almost opposite business cycle to that of new machine sales.

Looking at the company’s new products and comparing with others in the market, the company should start to see the pace pick up towards the end of the year, all depending of course on what happens with the current tariff madness.