IPAF optimistic on European access rental potential

The International Powered Access Federation (IPAF) said that new research into the European access rental market revealed that some of Europe’s biggest access markets still have considerable room to grow.

Tim Whiteman, announcing the publication of its European access rental study by consultant IHS Global Insight at IPAF’s Intermat press conference, said per capita spending on access rental services varied very widely between European countries.

In the UK, per capita expenditure on access rental in 2007 was estimated to be €27, while the equivalent figure for Spain was €19, falling to €10 in France and €7 for Germany. “There is three times as much usage of MEWPs in the UK than in France”, said Mr Whiteman, “There is plenty of room for growth [in several European countries]”.

The report also contains predictions on access rental revenues in 2009, with IPAF/IHS Global Insight forecasting a 6% fall overall, with the worst markets including the UK (down 8.6%) and Spain (-9.8%). The smallest declines are expected to be in The Netherlands and Belgium.

These figures could well be on the optimistic side, with large rental companies like Cramo, Ramirent and others anticipating overall revenue falls potentially higher than 10%.

John Ball, president of IPAF and managing director of Irish-based rental company Height for Hire, told the press conference that his own view was that the IPAF forecasts could be optimistic; “I think myself we are going to see bigger falls than [in the report]...my comments are based on extreme pressures there is on rental rates because of oversupply of equipment in a lot of markets.”