Varied End Markets Will Drive Growth into Next Year, United’s Flannery Says
United Rentals came into 2026 expecting another year of growth, but the business has continued to perform better than expected, CEO Matthew Flannery told a conference call of investors last week.
“Large projects across a variety of end markets are driving our growth, and we expect this moment will carry for the remainder of this year and into next year,” said Flannery.
“We remain well-positioned to outperform the industry with our broad footprint, our unmatched one-stop shop offering, accompanied by exceptional levels of service and leading technology and of course our unwavering commitment to safety. These capabilities, combined with our customers’ confidence and backlogs, support our revised guidance.”
Discussing customer activity, Flannery said, “The third quarter again saw growth across both our gen rent and specialty business. Specialty was a standout with rental revenue growth of 35 percent year-over-year, including 12 cold starts, which brings us to 40 cold starts year-to-date. Notably, each specialty line of business reported strong double-digit growth in the quarter. By vertical, the trends of the first half of the year carried into the third quarter. Construction continues to grow across non-residential and infrastructure. On the industrial side, power once again posted double-digit growth, as did metals and minerals. A variety of end markets drive our growth.”
Diversified exposure
Flannery said diversified exposure is an important and very intentional part of United’s strategy. “We saw projects kick off in the third quarter across numerous end markets, including energy, manufacturing, infrastructure, and data centers,” Flannery said.
In the third quarter, United sold $677 million of OEC at a 51-percent recovery rate. “The demand for used equipment remains strong,” Flannery noted. “We still expect to sell approximately $2.8 billion of fleet this year. Given the demand from our customers and our replacement of sold equipment, we spent $1.8 billion on gross rental CapEx in the quarter. This takes us to $4.7 billion year-to-date.”
Flannery added that United’s business model is unique and goes beyond purely equipment rental. “By layering on technology, innovation, and unmatched service across both our specialty and gen rent businesses, we support our customers’ productivity and drive a better partnership,” he said. “For our shareholders, this translated to profitable growth, strong free cash flow, and compelling returns.”
Flannery said positive fleet productivity and the opportunity to improve rates was widespread. “We are seeing positive fleet productivity throughout all business units and throughout all project types and all customer sets. So this is not just unique to projects or local market or industrial. This is across the board concerted effort for all of us to make sure we recapture the costs that we are observing.”
Flannery added that with a couple of end markets not being strong, such as industrial manufacturing, residential and downstream oil and gas, there are plenty of future opportunities. “So, we feel really good about the long-term view here, and certainly more bullish than we did six to 12 months ago,” he said.
For more about United Rentals’ third quarter results, visit: https://www.rermag.com/news-analysis/headline-news/news/55413634/united-rentals-enjoys-big-third-quarter-jumps
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.