Summary of business performance

Sales markets

The global market for industrial trucks registered strong growth of 13.6 per cent in the first three quarters of 2018. A total of 1,165.9 thousand trucks were ordered in the nine months under review (Q1 – Q3 2017: 1,026.6 thousand trucks). In the EMEA region, demand remained at a high level (market growth of 12.6 per cent). The rate of increase in western Europe was only slightly lower at 12.1 per cent, while orders in eastern Europe were up sharply by 21.9 per cent. Growth tailed off over the summer months in the Americas region, resulting in a rise for the nine-month period of 9.7 per cent. In the APAC region, order numbers went up by 16.4 per cent year on year, with China making a substantial contribution to this growth. > TABLE 01

Sales of electric forklift trucks were up by 11.0 per cent, which was on a par with the rate of increase for IC trucks of 10.3 per cent. Warehouse trucks registered even stronger growth of 17.4 per cent, predominantly due to healthy demand for smaller entry-level models.

In the market for supply chain solutions, demand remained high for warehouse automation, sorting solutions, and automated goods transport. Burgeoning e-commerce is continuing to have a significant impact, as is the related realignment of many supply chains. A steadily growing number of companies are investing in the expansion and optimisation of their warehousing and logistics capacity in order to shorten lead times, improve the efficiency of the flow of goods and widen their product range. Automated warehouse systems include not only solutions for individual processes, such as picking and packing, but also fully integrated end-to-end solutions.