UP IN ALL AREAS

It was a good year for many of the world’s largest craneowning companies in 2022

The magazine International Cranes and Specialised Transport has renamed the familiar IC50 crane-owning company table to the IC100. All 100 firms can be seen in the June issue of the magazine – this edited version looks at the top 50 on the list. Some big changes marked last year’s table and many of its metrics were down. This year there is less disruption and a more steady increase.

The 216 total number of entries compares closely with the 218 of last year but the total IC Index, as a combined figure for all the entries, this year is 34,510,957 points, up a healthy 5.85% on the 32,602,533 total of 2022.

This year’s top 100 total is 32,377,509, a full 6.1% higher than the top 100 total of 2022 which was 30,517,161 points. It is also within a few points of the 2022 grand total. Note that the top 100 companies’ total this year represents 94% of the grand total figure for all 216 entries this year.

New entries

Looking at the composition of the table, two of the 11 new entries this year made it into this year’s list, the highest of which is in 32nd place.

The number of wheeled cranes is pretty much static at approximately 26,000 units, or about the same as it was five years ago. An interesting change, however, is the number of lattice boom cranes, up by an impressive 19% from 6,763 to 8,054 units in the same period. Similarly, it should be noted that both the above metrics also do show increases over 2022, of 3.08% and 8.38%, respectively.

As to the other changes from last year: The number of depots for the top 100 companies, featured in the full list, is up 2.95% to 1,572. There are more employees, up 5.54% to 84,772 this year, over last year’s 80,325.

For the two years before last there was a decline in the number of employees. Taking a quick look at the top 20 companies reveals that there was only one decline.

This year there is less disruption and a more steady increase

All but one of the increases (lattice cranes) were changes of less than 1%. The only decline was also negligible in that the top 20 companies employed 24 fewer people than last year.

One of the US crawler crane specialist Buckner's two Liebherr LR 13000 lattice boom giants on site

Top of the table

The top seven companies all hold the same positions as last year with the gap between perennial leader Mammoet and its nearest rival, Sarens, is once again smaller than the year before.

Last year the gap was 837,946 points whereas this year it is down to 646,318 points, or 23 % less than last year.

The first change in the table, in 8th place is a two place move up for China Nuclear Industry Mechanical Engineering Co Ltd, displacing Maxim from the US.

Fellow Chinese company Shandong Gulf Lifting Engineering maintains its 9th place from last year while Sinopec, also from China, moves into the top ten from 11th place, which is now occupied by Maxim.

A BKL crane at work in Germany

PHOTO: LUISE NASSL

Upward moves

Quickly scanning down the table, there are several notable upward moves in the table. They include Denzai, Tiong Woon, and Schmidbauer. First of the new entries is Berdikari Pondasi Perkasa (BPP), in at 32, just a place above fellow Indonesian company Superkrane Mitra Utama. It would be fair to summarise that, at the moment, Asia seems to be largely where it is at. iC