Manitou Group exhibited at the Bauma China Trade Fair

The Bauma China international trade fair, which is dedicated to the construction industry,

The Bauma China international trade fair, which is dedicated to the construction industry, enabled Manitou to reaffirm its ambitions in the Asia region with an offer of 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. “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”, explained Antoine Chazelle, Manitou’s Vice-President Sales for the Asia Pacific Region.

Manitou Group is eager to maintain a high level of service throughout the region, and will possess a dedicated logistics center reorganized 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 major recent investment is the “Manitou Center” 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. “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 organizing 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”, noted Billy Wang, General Manager of Manitou China. Despite a slow-down in the mining sector in Asia, the Manitou group is continuing to grow its sales with brand new customers.