Worldwide sales of new all-terrain (AT) cranes in 2000 reached 2,638, with nearly 2,000 units sold in Western Europe, about 400 in North America and 250 in the rest of the world.

Market leader Liebherr claimed a 36.3% market share by delivering 957 of them, said Friedrich Bär, managing director of Liebherr-Werk Ehingen, the factory that produces Liebherr’s ATs. Liebherr also shipped 63 crawler cranes from its Ehingen factory.

Turnover from new ATs was DM 1,015.2m ($461.5m).

A turnover of DM 112.8m ($51.3m) was achieved from sales of new crawlers built at Ehingen (crawler of 400t capacity and above are built at Ehingen; smaller models are built by Liebherr-Werk Nenzing in Austria).

Liebherr Ehingen also sold 490 used cranes for a total of DM 249m ($113m).

Total turnover was up 7% to DM 1,532m ($696m).

Key markets were Germany and Spain/Portugal. Liebherr claimed a 41% share of the German AT market – a slight increase – by delivering 282 machines. It also delivered 230 new ATs to Spain and Portugal, giving it a 50% market share there, according to the company.

“Demand from the Iberian peninsular, which in the past was a classic pre-owned crane market, has shifted almost completely to new AT cranes in all size categories,” said Bär. A massive public works programme in Spain and the European soccer championships coming to Portugal in 2004 are expected to sustain demand for new machines. Bär said Liebherr already had orders for 160 ATs from Spain this year.

Liebherr Ehingen also delivered: 65 new ATs to France (37% share); 31 to Italy (29%); and 80 to the USA (20% – Grove is the clear US market leader).

In France sales brought in DM100m ($45m). Liebherr also claims a 59% market share in Austria, 55% in Switzerland, 44% in Sweden, 71% in Finland, 30% in the UK and 20% in the USA, where Grove is the clear market leader.

Including the tower cranes produced by Liebherr-Werk Biberach and lift crawler cranes from Liebherr Nenzing, Liebherr Group saw its construction crane/mobile crane product division increase its turnover by 10.6% in 2000 to SFr1,729m (almost exactly $1bn).

Liebherr Group’s fully consolidated turnover for 2000, including ship, harbour and offshore cranes, construction machinery, aircraft equipment, refrigeration equipment and other divisions, was up 14.1% to SFr6,256m ($3.6bn).