01.08.2025

Tough quarter for JLG

JLG’s parent company Oshkosh has reported its half year results, which show shrinking sales and profit at its JLG/access division.

Year to date results
The Access division, which is largely made up of JLG, Hinowa and Ausa, saw revenues for the six months to the end of June drop by around 16 percent to $2.21 billion.

This is broken down as follows:

Aerial lifts - $1.09 billion (- 14%)
Telehandlers - $802 million (-29%)
Other - $575.8 million (-3.6%)
Total: $2.64 billion (-16%)

Operating profit for the division slumped 37.5 percent to $284.7 million, due to lower sales volumes and deeper discounts compared to last year.

Backlog, Order book
The order book at the end of June was just over 42 percent lower at $1.19 billion, compared to $3.26 billion a year ago.

Full year forecast
The company is forecasting access revenues of $4.4 billion for 2025, a fall of 14.5 percent on 2024, with a margin of 12.5 percent compared to 16.5 percent last year.

Second Quarter result

Revenues in the second quarter declined 10.7 percent to $1.26 billion, thanks to the loss of the Caterpillar telehandler contract in Europe, along with a slower domestic and European markets as rental companies postponed investment.

The results are broken down as follows:
Aerial lifts - $638 million (-5.5%)

Telehandlers - $428.6 million (-24.1%)
Other - $292.9 million (-3.3%)
Total: $1.41 billion (10.7%)

Operating profit for the division declined 26.3 percent to $181.6 million, primarily due to the same reasons as for YTD results.

Oshkosh results

Oshkosh as a whole posted half year revenues of $5.04 billion, a fall of 6.5 percent, while pre-tax profit declined 9.5 percent to $421.8 million.

Oshkosh chief executive John Pfeifer said: “We delivered a strong second quarter, reflecting disciplined execution and broad based strength across our portfolio. Our Vocational segment continued to perform well, and our Access segment remained resilient and delivered another impressive quarter, helping to drive solid overall results.”

“This quarter featured several strategic highlights, including the launch of our new micro size J JLG scissor lift, a three year contract extension for our Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles programme with the U.S. Army and our successful Investor Day in June, where we outlined our 2028 financial targets.”

“Given our strong performance in the second quarter and continued visibility in our Vocational and Transport segments, we are raising our full year expectations for adjusted earnings per share to be approximately $11.00. Despite ongoing uncertainties in the global trade environment, we remain confident in our ability to navigate these challenges while delivering value for customers and shareholders.”

Vertikal Comment
This is not a great performance from JLG, although it is not dissimilar to many others, such as Genie. Oher are showing signs of a pick up in the current quarter, which JLG is not, although given the chaos and confusion caused by seemingly ever changing tariffs – who knows.

What is a bit of a surprise is that the ending of the Cat deal was a such a major factor. Many thought it had petered out some time ago, clearly not. It also sounds like the Ausa sales that are a factor this year, do not come close to compensating for it.

Sadly, we were unable to find what order intake was like in the first half and second quarter, as it tends to be a decent guide to what to expect in the following two quarters. Extrapolating its from backlog changes and invoice levels it looks as though it was weaker than required to fuel any bounce back in the second half, which seems to gel with the full year forecast.

Time will tell – in this market anything could happen.