Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/268240
EquipmentWorld.com | March 2014 9 on record | by Marcia Gruver Doyle MGruver@randallreilly.com Unit sale champions over the past decade J ust out of curiosity, I went to Randall-Reilly's Equipment Data Associates to find out the unit count winners – both machine types and specific models – over the past 10 years. EDA tracks financed units only – so if you bought a machine with cash or by a letter of credit, it doesn't have the data. What's left, however, is a large chunk of the market for most equipment types. If you want to pit equipment type against equip- ment type in terms of number of financed units sold, there have been some massively uneven con- tests going on. The number of new (and low cost compared to other equipment types) skid steers fi- nanced in the past 10 years is more than double the number of mid- to large size excavators financed (this includes sales, rentals and leases). And you can see how much compact track loaders have been embraced by contractors: they are second in terms of units sold. Here are the numbers (units financed) for the top equipment types (2004-2013): 1. Skid steers 186,091 2. Compact track loaders 96,934 3. Excavators (including wheeled) 88,159 4. Compact excavators 82,792 5. Wheel loaders (including toolcarriers) 66,404 6. Backhoes 63,794 7. Dozers (including LGP models) 51,710 So which model was the number one financed new unit in the past decade in terms of units sold? Bobcat's S185 mid-range, 1,850-pound rated operat- ing load skid steer, with just over 10,000 units. Part of this is due to its longevity: the S185 model, albeit with upgrades, has been around for all 10 years. By type, here are the other unit sale champions over the past 10 years: Compact track loaders: Bobcat T190, 8,214 units (another unit that has been here for all 10 years) Excavators: Cat 320C L, 3,119 Compact excavators: Kubota KX121-3, 5,824 Backhoes: Case 580 Super M, 5,429 Wheel loaders: Deere 544J, 2,741 Dozers: Deere 650J, 3,038 Some of these are oldies, but obviously goodies. (Caterpillar, for instance, is now on its E Series of excavators.) Just how many of these top selling models do you have in your fleet? The Bobcat S185 skid steer had the most new model unit sales – 10,002 – during the past 10 years (2004-2013).