Survey says

Fifteen of the world's biggest aerial platform owners grew their fleets by over 20% last year, and eight of them broke the 40% growth barrier. Acquisitions played a big part in this – notably in the case of Ashtead Group (owner of Sunbelt Rentals)– but organic growth and big spending on fleets played an equally important role, with companies as diverse as Simplex in Canada simply spending a lot on lifts.

The overall impact of this heavy investment has been a 21% increase in the size of the world's Access–50 fleet, to 402,900 units. An almost equal rise in the biggest fleets sees rise to a whopping 179,880 units, nd the top 10 reaching more than 50,000 machines.

Number one again is United Rentals, with a relatively modest 3.5% increase to just over 73,555 machines. It is not–so–closely followed by RSC with 35,705 units and Ashtead Group (combining A–Plant, Sunbelt and NationsRent) with 31,510 aerials. Ahern Rentals also had significant growth with an increase of 22.8%, bringing its fleet size of aerials and booms to 13,995.

This year for the first time, ALH had a look at telehandler fleets, as well (see box below). Not everyone was willing to part with this information. Listed are those companies that have more than 1,000 telehandlers.