Demand for equipment in both capital sales and rentals has been very strong. Earlier in the year, we couldn’t keep up with the volume requested from our dealers. We increased capacity and got past supply issues to catch up in the last few months.
Superior will have a record year for sales in 2023, and most of our dealers would report a similar story, in it being their largest year.
We are entering 2024 with a significant amount of backlog. Dealers have planned stock orders out for most of the year with lead times stretching out. End users have already placed orders for projects in 2024, with some already booked into 2025. If there are no unforeseen issues or geopolitical events, we expect 2024 will be better than 2023.
In the last few months, we’ve seen a lot more producers looking to rent equipment from our dealers rather than buy. This was a shift from earlier in the year when customers were buying up any gear that was available. As dealer rental fleets increase without converting machines, it can max out lines of credit and delay bringing in new machines.
Federal money for projects should expand demand for materials at the end user market. We’ve also added a number of new dealers to our network that will expand our reach to customers.
Johnnie Garrison is vice president of sales at Superior Industries.
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