Strong Specialty, Manufacturing Growth and Mega Projects Make United Rentals Optimistic About 2025, Flannery Says
United Rentals continued its strong specialty rental growth in 2024, a trend it expects to continue to surge in 2025, CEO Matthew Flannery told a conference call of investors this week.
“Specialty rental revenue grew an impressive 24 percent year over year and a strong 15 percent even if you exclude the benefits of the Yak acquisition,” Flannery said. “Our cross-selling efforts helped fuel growth across all of our product offerings, and furthermore we added 15 cold starts in the quarter, putting us at 57 year to date.”
Flannery said third quarter growth trends were similar to the second quarter. “We saw growth in both construction, led by non-res, and our industrial end markets with particular strength in manufacturing. It will come as no surprise that we again had multiple new projects in the quarter across data centers, airports, healthcare and battery manufacturing, to name a few.”
In the used market, United sold a third quarter record amount of equipment, speaking to the strengths of demand in the marketplace. “As we replace this equipment and buy additional fleet to meet our customer needs, we spend almost $1.3 billion on capex in the third quarter,” Flannery said. “We continue to see opportunity to put fleet on rent and our full-year guidance reflects a tightened capex range with the midpoint unchanged.”
Flannery said United has good momentum heading into 2025, which is looking like another strong year of growth. “The tailwinds for a multitude of large complex projects are still in the early innings, and we believe we’re uniquely positioned as the partner of choice with our customers. To support these initiatives, we continue to make investments in optimizing operations for both ourselves and our customers. For example, we’re investing in our next generation telematics products which help customers gain new insights into their own operations and allow our technicians to prioritize their workflow and best manage our fleet."
Tool tracking system
United Rentals recently announced an innovative new technology. “Our ProBox OnDemand is a Bluetooth-enabled automated tool tracking system which ensures workers have the right tools where and when they need them, and tracks tools in real time to significantly reduce worksite loss,” Flannery said
In other developments, Flannery talked about the staff in the field responding quickly to customer needs after devastating damage caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
“In both instances, we were immediate to respond, putting our proven United Rentals playbook to work and providing our customers with the support needed to start the clean-up and rebuild process,” Flannery said.
Flannery is optimistic about the coming year. “The tailwinds that we talk about with mega projects, infrastructure and the like really plays to our one-stop shop full-value offering,” he said. “That also helps specialty drive more growth.”
Flannery said the company will announce its capex plans in the next conference call in January after it solidifies its planning process.
For a further look at United Rentals' Q3 numbers, visit: https://www.rermag.com/news-analysis/headline-news/article/55237798/united-rentals-almost-hits-4-billion-in-total-third-quarter-revenue
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.