The German magazine dhf's World Ranking List of Manufacturers of Powered Industrial Trucks for 2003/04 showed most of the previous year's top 10 manufacturers retained their world rankings.

The annual survey, conducted by Dr Walter Roedig and dhf chief editor Wolfgang Degenhard exclusively for dhf, revealed the top 10 as:
* Toyota Industries Corp (Japan)
* Linde (Germany)
* Jungheinrich (Germany)
* Nacco Corp (USA)
* Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (Japan)
* Crown Equipment Corp (USA)
* Komatsu Ltd (Japan)
* Kone Corp (Finland)
* Nissan Motor Co Ltd (Japan)
* Manitou (France)

All top 10 manufacturers retained their positions from 2002/03 except Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Crown Equipment Corp, which swapped positions.

In the list of the top 35 manufacturers, most of the top 20 retained their positions with only six companies changing by one place.

Rocla OYJ (Finland) moved one place up to 18 for 2003/04 while Pramac (Italy), ranked at 31 for 2003/04, was an addition to the list from 2002/03.

Fantuzzi Reggiane (Italy), which was number 18 in 2002/03 was excluded from the 2003/04 list.

Roedig and Degenhard said in dhf's December 2004 issue that the majority of the forklift manufacturers were interested in participating in their survey.

However, information about Fantuzzi Reggiane had always been based on estimated growth indices due to the manufacturer's lack of interest. Therefore, Roedig and Degenhard chose to exclude Fantuzzi from their latest survey.

Degenhard and Roedig also said:

"The forklift industry is a cyclic business. The first two years of the new millennium were characterised by a drop in demand and consequently a decrease in prices but now there is an upward trend again.

"... there are essentially two reasons for this growth - the revival of the US market and above all the (somewhat overheated) demand in the People's Republic of China."

Click here for full details of the survey.