Tom Riordan, Terex President and Chief Operating Officer, added, “We remain confident about our business outlook for the remainder of 2008. Looking forward, we can see challenges in material costs, especially as we move into the second half of 2008. We intend to address these cost increases through pricing actions to recover lost margin arising from higher component costs. While we anticipate that we will be able to implement these pricing actions timely and effectively, we realize that there is a certain level of risk and exposure that may materialize in the second half of the year.”
Cranes backlog for orders due for delivery in the next 12 months grew to $2.19bn, up 7% since December, and up 70% compared with the same period last year. This figure is almost half of Terex Corp’s total backlog, $4.8bn.
In the first quarter of 2008, Terex has announced that net sales in its cranes segment increased $131.4 million, or 26.2%, to $632.2m compared with the first quarter of 2007. Excluding the effects of exchange rate changes, net sales increased approximately 15.4%.
“Very strong global demand, particularly for large crawler cranes and mobile telescopic cranes, continued to drive robust sales and order activity,” the company reported. “Growth in rough terrain cranes sales in the quarter reflected North American and Middle East market strength, particularly from the energy sector, while sales of boom trucks and smaller truck cranes in North America remained under pressure. Operating margin increased to 13.6%, up substantially from the 10.6% reported in the first quarter of 2007, reflecting the favorable mix of sophisticated, high capacity cranes in the quarter, as well as meaningful improvement in lean manufacturing and productivity enhancements. Supplier constraints, particularly in Europe, and capacity limitations in terms of welding and assembly space have extended delivery lead times.”
Terex Corp’s net sales for the period reached $2.36bn, up 17.4% over the same period last year. However, a third of that growth – $122m – was due to the relative weakness of the dollar on international markets. And a further $38m came from net sales from recent acquisitions, which probably includes compact truck front loader manufacturer ASV.
Ron DeFeo, Terex Chairman and Chief Executive Officer said: “The strength of international end markets and the continued strength of the domestic U.S. ‘in-the-air’ products yielded excellent results in our aerial work platforms and cranes business segments.”
