Weak North America Sales Drop JLG Revenues 17.5 Percent in Fiscal Q4
Sales declined 17.5 percent to $769.5 million during the fiscal fourth quarter of 2015 for JLG, the access equipment segment of Oshkosh Corp. A slowdown in the order rate in North America was the primary driver of lower shipments in the fourth quarter and was partially offset by improved shipments in Europe.
A stronger U.S. dollar also negatively impacted access equipment shipment sales by $26.2 million. On a constant currency basis, the decrease in access segment sales was $14.7 percent.
Access equipment segment operating income dropped 55.7 percent to $56.5 million, or 7.3 percent of sales, for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015, compared to $127.4 million or 13.7 percent in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014.
“Fourth quarter earnings were in line with our revised expectations,” said Charles Szews, Oshkosh Corp. CEO. “As we expected, our access equipment and concrete mixer businesses experienced soft demand in the fourth quarter, but construction activity in North America and Europe remains on the upswing, which we believe will lead to stronger demand for these products in coming months.”
Szews said the company expects the access equipment and concrete mixer markets to be soft in the first half of fiscal 2016, improving once the 2016 construction season gets underway.
For the entire company, fiscal fourth quarter sales were $1,578.3 million compared to $1,667.7 million in the same period a year ago, a 5.4-percent year-over-year decrease.
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.