Looking for the highest point

It is almost common sense that the main appeal of telehandlers is their operating versatility, since they offer a series of implements such as buckets, forks, winches, etc. But their application is not too spread in Brazil. Last year—that was better than the previous years—only 550 units were sold, according to the Sobratema Study of Brazilian Equipment Market. For comparison, backhoe sales reached eleven thousand unities.

In France and United Kingdom, otherwise, five telehandlers are sold for each backhoe. These machines are popular in those countries because they may be used in works of civil construction, mining, industries and others, and mainly in agriculture, world’s largest user for this type of machine.

Here, these machines are currently fighting to get their space and to increase their sales. But in the manufacturers’ evaluation, this situation will not last longer since their projections for next years are quite optimistic.

In short term, the bet is in civil and heavy construction. But for some years later, agriculture will definitely be the best bet. Currently, expressive buyers are only building contractors that work in popular housing programs (such as My House, My Life), where the works start to be palletized and telehandlers are already showing their efficiency. “In fact, the versatility of telehandlers became known in Brazil only in the last five years”, says Nei Hamilton, commercial director of JCB in Brazil. “And they came exactly to attend a natural evolution of the market, that started do demand more productivity and consequently more mechanization of worksites.”