The company attributed around 40% of the overall drop in sales to the effects of foreign currencies. Regarding the Cranes division, interim Manitowoc chief executive Kenneth Krueger said: "Our shortfall during the third quarter was largely the result of weakness in tower crane demand in Asia and the Middle East, coupled with broad-based softness in all-terrain cranes. In addition, we experienced significant delays in crawler crane shipments due to extended reliability testing and operational issues."
Operating earnings in Cranes were down from $41.6m to $4.3m, with orders falling from $557m to $337m.
"Continued global economic uncertainty, coupled with the devaluation of the Chinese yuan that negatively affected the rest of the Asian markets, weighed on end market demand in the third quarter," said Krueger.
As previously announced, the company expects crane revenue for the full-year 2015 to fall by around 15-20% year-on-year.