Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/894232
I f 2017 financed new equipment sales were a track meet, compact track loaders would take the gold in the number of new fi- nanced units sold, with compact excavators in solid second place. Financed new equipment sales are both con- tinuing previous trends and showing possible signs of downturns ahead, according to infor- mation from EDA. The advance of the CTL, noted in this column before, continues in 2017. Narrowing the field to the top three types of compact construc- tion equipment sold via financing – CTLs, compact excavators and skid steers – the number of new CTLs financed through September 30th of this year are track- ing 9 percent ahead of 2016's overall total in terms of market share among the three equipment types. Another big market share gainer this year in compact machine types is compact excavators, currently 7 percent ahead of the 2016 total in number of units sold. Not so fortunate are skid steers, currently tracking 13 percent lower than 2016 in compact equipment market share. When it comes to full-size equipment market share (comparing excavators, wheel loaders, backhoes, dozers and artics), excavators are tracking 8 percent (again, through September 30th) ahead of last year's overall total. However, when you look at the actual number of units being financed as shown in this chart, it underlines possible signs of trouble ahead for some equipment types. If we extrapolate the cur- rent rate of buying over the final quarter of 2017, then the total number of units financed among all eight compact and full-size machine types in 2017 would be 7 percent below 2016 levels. Looking at forecast unit sales, CTLs and com- pact excavators are again sitting pretty, with 4 percent and 3 percent gains, respectively, over 2016 totals. From that point on, however, the picture gets murkier, with five types of equipment with forecast double-digit declines in the number of financed units sold, compared with 2016. They are wheel loaders (-26 percent), artics (-24 percent), back- hoes (-22 percent), skid steers (-18 per- cent) and dozers (-14 percent). It should be noted – and this is a big caveat – that this forecast does not take into account end-of-year buy- ing bumps that take advantage of the bonus depreciation or Section 179 tax incentives, so the end-of-the-year tally will likely not be so dire for these machine types. This can be a significant correction since in the past two years there's been a 22 percent increase in the num- ber of machines financed in December versus the monthly average during the rest of the year. This will be interesting to watch. We'll keep you posted. EquipmentWorld.com | November 2017 9 on record | by Marcia Gruver Doyle MGruver@randallreilly.com 2017 so far Editor's note: EDA is a division of Randall-Reilly, which owns Equipment World. Number of new financed units sold 2016 2017 YTD* Forecast** 2016 v 2017 Forecast CTL 22,983 17,984 23,979 4% Compact excavator 17,928 13,911 18,548 3% Skid steer 13,843 8,485 11,313 -18% Excavator 10,539 7,239 9,652 -8% Wheel loader 9,143 5,106 6,808 -26% Backhoe 3,585 2,105 2,807 -22% Dozer 4,550 2,923 3,897 -14% Artic 1,426 813 1,084 -24% Total 83,997 58,566 78,088 -7% *Through Sept. 30 **Does not include anticipated December increase