Sales for world’s top construction OEMs surprisingly strong

The May issue of International Construction contains the Yellow Table

Sales for the world’s top 50 construction equipment manufacturers in 2020 were impacted less severely by the Covid-19 pandemic and national lockdowns than had been feared, according to International Construction’s Yellow Table.

The Yellow Table – which ranks the world’s top 50 OEMs by sales – has enjoyed several years of good growth, with last year’s table coming in at a record-high of US$202.7 billion. However, with the market already thought to have reached the peak of its current cycle and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns, a large fall in 2020 was anticipated.

The full table and results will be available in the June issue of International Construction magazine, but it reveals that the percentage drop of overall sales in 2020 is 5.5%.

This year’s Yellow Table has seen more movement in the top ten than is normal – a global pandemic is an unusual situation that has led to increased volatility. The traditional top two OEMs, Caterpillar and Komatsu, retain their places of first and second place respectively, but there are different companies at numbers three, four and five of the list compared to last year. 

A lot of the movement on the list comes from Chinese companies. China was the only major construction equipment market to grow in 2020, with the government quick to put a stimulus plan in place as early as April that drove an immediate surge in equipment sales.

According to Off-Highway Research, China saw an increase of around 14% for construction equipment sales, while the other major markets all declined. The one new entry on the table is a China-based access equipment manufacturer, at number 46.

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