Healthy fleet growth in the Access50

The Access50 2020 listing of the world’s largest access equipment rental companies has been published and shows a healthy market, leading up to the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as some notable changes in the top 10.

The top five in the Access50, published in the July-August issue of Access International, remains the same as last year, with United Rentals unsurprisingly taking top position again.

The data shows that the top 50 fleets - as measured year-on-year in June - grew by 8.4% to more than 850,000 units, with the top 10 increasing by 13.8% to 573,000 units, reflecting further rental consolidation among the largest players.

The gap between United and customarily-second placed Sunbelt Rentals has historically been vast, with a difference last year of 40,000 units. Until now, Sunbelt and its UK-based sister company A-Plant, both owned by Ashtead Group, have been listed separately as they were quite different operations.This year, it was announced that the UK arm would be rebranded as Sunbelt in line with its US counterpart, and to avoid confusion the fleets of both companies have now been combined in the Access50, bringing its total to within 20,000 of United’s fleet size.

However, there are a couple of new arrivals in sixth and seventh positions by companies that have worked their way up the list. One of them, in seventh place is Boels Rental, following its major acquisition of Cramo. Its fleet has more than doubled in size since last year, taking on Cramo’s 13,000-strong fleet, as it appeared in the 2019 listing.

The other, Shanghai Horizon, China’s largest rental company, has seen a huge rise in its fleet size of more than 20,000 units since the access50 last year, to bring it into sixth position, from 20th last year. It reflects the strength of the China-based rental companies, which, overall, have the largest fleet size increases through organic growth in the Access50 listing.  

There are 75 companies in the listing, incorporating all the major rental fleets in the world of both access equipment and telehandlers, shown seperately. Download the July-August issue of AI to see the full listing