Turkey's Acarlar plans big boost to rental fleet

Turkish access rental and sales company Acarlar Makine is planning to increase its aerial platform fleet from 200 to 350 units by the end of this year.

The company, which is Turkish dealer for Haulotte and Omme, has been renting aerials since 2004 but is now investing more heavily in the rental business, creating last year a separate rental division called Rent & Rise.

Serkan Acar, general manager of the company, speaking to International Rental News (IRN) at the ConExpo exhibition in Las Vegas, that the rental business was originally started as a way of demonstrating equipment to buyers, but that now it was more focused on developing the rental division as a service business in its own right.

He told IRN that the Acarlar operation was now 50/50 sales and rental; "but in the future it will be more rental. We are behind the rest of Europe and the US, but it is now coming to Turkey." He said the rental division would specialise in access equipment.

The total Turkish rental fleet amounts to little more than 1000 units. "This is nothing", said Mr Acar, "This year we want to double the rental business - the total market size and our fleet." The company will invest around €2 million in 2011.

The current fleet is a mix of diesel and electric scissors (mainly Haulotte), electric booms (also Haulotte) and crawlers (Hinowa and Omme). "Turkey is very active in building shopping centres", he said, "hence the crawlers." The fleet has five Hinowa and three Omme platforms, including a 37 m unit.

Investment this year will be concentrated on larger diesel and electric Haulotte scissors and also Haulotte booms, including the 41 m HA41PX-NT articulated boom. Acarlar has already had a 43 m telescopic Haulotte boom in its fleet for two years.

The company has three depots at the moment, in Istanbul, Ankara and Bursa, and Mr Acar said two more depots will be added next year, one in Ismir and another in a still to be decided location in south eastern Turkey.

From its Turkish base Acalar is also starting to sell aerial platforms in neighbouring markets such as Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, and also northern Iraq, where it has been selling electric booms and scissors for maintenance work at shopping centres and mosques.