Manitou Group Consolidates Position in Asia – Industry News

The Manitou group, is attending the Bauma China international trade fair again this year (22 – 25 November 2016). The event, which is dedicated to the construction industry, and welcomed 190,000 visitors in 2014, enables Manitou to reaffirm its ambitions in the Asia region with products and services that is increasingly tailored to the needs of this market.

Having had a presence in Asia for a number of years, Manitou Group was able to increase its market share in 2016 compared with 2015, despite a relatively challenging economic environment. Antoine Chazelle, Manitou's vice-president of sales for the Asia Pacific Region said,"A number of factors explain the Group's strong results: a particularly buoyant market in aerial platforms in the South Asia region and many sales in high-growth countries such as Vietnam."

Manitou Group is eager to maintain a high level of service throughout the region, and will have a dedicated logistics centre in Singapore from the first quarter of 2017 to supply customers located in the Asia Pacific region with spare parts in the shortest possible time frames. The Group's goal is to guarantee a 90% availability rate. Another recent investment is the "Manitou Centre" set up in Malaysia at the start of 2016 to consolidate service quality and operate more locally for its customers.

The leasing market in China continues to show strong growth with an annual growth rate estimated at almost 20% for the last five years. The Manitou group is well-positioned for this customer segment, having consolidated its partnerships with major market players during the construction of Disneyland Shanghai.

Furthermore, the network of distributors is increasing its coverage with the recent arrival of Gateway in China, bringing the number of dealerships in Asia for Gehl and Mustang compact loaders to fifteen. This should enable the company to gain further market share in the construction sector.

Billy Wang, general manager of Manitou China said, "The major leasing companies will play an increasingly large role in China over the next five years, so we need to provide a complete offer that includes our aerial platforms as well as our telescopic forklifts specifically for construction. This constitutes a considerable change in usage and we are organising many demonstrations of our telescopic models to show how simple they are to use and also their wide range of applications. This equipment has great potential for our market."

Despite a slow-down in the mining sector in Asia, the Manitou group is continuing to grow its sales with brand new customers.

To support growth and respond as effectively as possible to market needs, Manitou China moved premises in May to Min Hand District (Shanghai). This gives a larger surface area to store machines, to provide optimal assistance to all customers and distributors, and to have a dedicated training area.