The 100 largest rental companies in North America topped $19.3 billion in rental volume in 2015, according to the brand new RER 100 released this week in the May edition of RER magazine, and published online at www.rermag.com. The total was a 9.2-percent increase compared to $17.7 billion in last year’s edition which covered 2014 revenue. The results showed a continued strong growth pace for the industry’s largest rental companies.
Although the oil-and-gas market clearly slowed down, having a particularly strong impact on rental companies operating directly in regions with significant oil-and-gas exploration and extraction, overall nonresidential construction continued strong as did the industrial rental market and most other equipment rental segments.
The top 10 of the RER 100 did very well for the most part, totaling almost $12.7 billion in rental volume, and increasing 10.4 percent compared to last year’s listing.
Almost 40 percent of the companies listed on the RER 100 posted double-digit rental volume growth. Almost 15 percent topped 20 percent and nearly 10 topped 30 or 40 percent. Several companies reported significant volume declines as well, partially balancing out the good news.
Still the good news clearly outweighed the bad and most of the RER 100 companies expressed optimism going forward.
California did extremely well; Florida and Texas appeared solid, despite the oil industry difficulties in Texas. Most Canadian companies reported some difficult times with continuing major challenges for the immediate future. Several rental companies said they have started 2016 better than expected and the consensus was an optimistic expectation for the next couple of years, although caution seems to be outweighing dramatic expansion for most when it comes to expanding fleet.
Still, all signs point to the next RER 100 topping $20 billion in rental volume with plenty of room to spare.
To view the listing, please go to: http://rermag.com/rer-100/rer-100-top-rental-equipment-companies-2015.
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.