CECE market analysis: “Sales for Europe in the second quarter rather flat”

This morning, CECE updated its members and those within the industry on the current market situation in the European construction equipment sector.

Riccardo Viaggi, Secretary General of CECE, emphasised supply chain issues are easing but new challenges have appeared with high inflation and even higher interest rates.

Sebastian Popp, CECE’s economic affairs manager, provided an update on the outlook for the remainder of 2023, as well as a summary of the first 6 months of the year, during the call

Popp said that there is a downturn that cannot be seen yet in the sales numbers of construction equipment but can be seen in the order intake. “We need to see both sides to see where the market is heading,” he added.

Popp also went on to mention that there was a slight decline (4.2%) at the start of the year, this was largerly attributed to the second quarter.

Southern Europe was said to be a latecomer in the recovery of the economical crisis, but Popp says that this has now finished recovering.

Moderate levels of decline were seen in both the UK and France. These turned negative after reaching their peak in the first qurater and are now said to be heading towards an uncertain future. 

Popp said, “Sales for Europe in the second quarter was rather flat. We saw slight growth in compact equipment and where we still see a lot of urban costruction and investments into digital infrastructure. There is still digging going on.

“On the heavy equipment segment we are already seeing a downturn which goes hand in hand with strong economic unpredictability. We are not surprised about this trend.”

Afonso Brito, Economic & Legal Policy Officer at FIEC, added that construction activity in the EU increased by 2.1% in 2022 but is expected to decline in 2023. This is attributed to sustained high energy and raw material costs that have a negative impact on production levels.