JLG: Market drivers indicate strong multi-year growth

JLG’s net sales in its fourth quarter to September 30 increased 37.3% to $845.9 million compared to the same period in 2020, the company announced. The increase was due to improved market demand in North America, however, JLG noted its fourth quarter of fiscal 2020 was impacted by low market demand, due in large part to the economic downturn brought on by Covid-19.

For JLG’s full fiscal year, the company reported total sales for its mobile elevating work platforms at $1.47 billion up 33% from last year’s $1.1 billion. Looking back to 2019, JLG saw MEWP sales of $1.94 billion. Telehandler sales for the full year were at $769 million up 13% from $680.4 million last year. In 2019, JLG telehandlers sales for the full year amounted to $1.25 billion. The company’s total access sales for the 2021 full year were $3.07 billion up 22.8% from 2020’s $2.5 billion. In 2019, the company reported total access sales of $4.07 billion.

The company’s full year backlog was up 552% to $2.8 billion, a record-level for the company. For comparison, in 2019, JLG’s backlog was $367 million.

John C. Pfeifer, Oshkosh president and CEO, said during an investors call, “Access equipment, which faced an extreme decline in demand in 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, has since experienced the most rapid rebound of any of our businesses. The rapid return of demand in 2021 exacerbated the supply chain challenges we have been facing, and we believe it will remain choppy well into 2022. Our access team continues to work hard to source components to build and shift products to customers around the globe.”

Pfeifer added, “The rental equipment market is strong, and the access leadership team has taken measured steps to preserve the health of the industry by addressing unfair competition through our trade case. We believe that we are in the early stages of a multiyear growth cycle for access equipment as the rental companies work to lower the overall age of their fleets, which were at historically high levels entering 2021. I want to emphasize that our growth outlook is underpinned by strong market fundamentals, and our continued launch of innovative product offerings such as the DaVinci all-electric scissors that you’ve heard me talk about, and many other new product launches in recent quarters.”

JLG said supply chain issues impacted production and resulted in lower sales as well as labor inefficacies. However, the company said elevated rental fleet ages and strong utilization profiles indicate strong, multi-year demand and growth.

“Despite significant supply chain disruptions and higher material costs in the latter half of fiscal 2021, we completed another successful year for Oshkosh Corporation with fourth quarter fiscal 2021 revenues of $2.06 billion and operating income of $104.2 million,” said Pfeifer. “During the year, we overcame many pandemic-related challenges, continued to strengthen our customer relationships, won major new programs in the Defense segment, introduced exciting new electric-powered vehicles and delivered double digit revenue and earnings growth.”

As a whole, Oshkosh reported net sales for fiscal 2021 of $7.74 billion and net income of $472.7 million. This compares to net sales of $6.86 billion and net income of $324.5 million in the prior year. The improvement in net income for fiscal 2021 was the result of the impact of higher consolidated sales volumes and the carryback of a U.S. net operating loss to previous tax years, offset in part by higher material & logistics costs and higher incentive compensation costs.