Haulotte Optimistic About 2021 Despite 20 Percent First Quarter Sales Decline
French aerial equipment manufacturer Haulotte achieved sales of €106.0 million in the first quarter of 2021, compared to €132.9 million at the end of March 2020, which was the last quarter not affected by the global pandemic, a decline of 20 percent. Like many industrial sectors, the mobile elevating work platform market is still struggling with procurement difficulties of certain components, with supply chain tension inherent in the recovery.
In North America, Haulotte posted a limited sales decline of 2 percent in the first quarter, with the aerial work platform business continuing to grow by around 6 percent over the period.
In Europe, Haulotte's sales tumbled 24 percent in the first quarter compared to 2020 but increased 10 percent compared to the previous quarter.
In Asia Pacific, the Group recorded a decline in sales of 14 percent in the quarter compared to the same period in 2020.
In Latin America, sales were down by 12 percent compared to the same period last year, in a market still strongly impacted by the health crisis.
At the end of the 2021 first quarter, equipment sales were down 22 percent compared to the first quarter of 2020, rental activity dropped 12 percent, while service activity jumped 9 percent.
Haulotte is far more optimistic about its prospects for 2021. Buoyed by the rebound in the aerial market and despite the current tensions in the supply chain, which the group hopes to see resolved during the summer, Haulotte expects to grow its sales by more than 15 percent in 2021 and to achieve a current operating margin (excluding foreign exchange gains and losses) of between 3 percent and 4 percent of sales.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.