Access 50 up 6% but growth is patchy

The combined growth of the Access 50 - largest powered access rental fleets in the world - is between 5.5% and 6% but this figure fails to reflect the massive growth in some areas and the continued reduction in others.

It will come as no surprise that following its acquisition of RSC, United Rentals is still at the top of the listing - with a massive fleet which is probably around the 90000 unit mark.

The combined fleets of the top five companies appear to have grown 19% compared to last year, but if the figures are adjusted to take into account that RSC was always a top 5 company, the growth looks more like 8%. Ashtead's (at number 2) investment has had a large impact on this growing its fleet 57%.

Others that have put in massive investment are Japan's Aktio Corp - growing its powered access fleet a massive 118% and Solaris Brazil(100%) and Mills Rental from Latin America. Mills does not appear to have grown its fleet this year but that can be explained by the company reporting the wrong period last year - it has, in fact, invested US$87 million in fleet over the last year.

There was also large growth by the USA's Sunstate Equipment and the UK's HSS Hire.

New to the list this year is the Netherlands company Colle, a well established company with a fleet in the 3000 unit region, which had until now avoided AI's attempts to include it, and the USA's Volvo Rent, which has been on a serious acquisition trail including Midwest Aerials - itself a regular on the Access 50 list.

The 2012 Access 50 list of the largest powered access rental fleets in the world is published in the July August issue of Access International, so you can see all the details there - it will be hitting desks soon and will be available to read on line very shortly.