Construction equipment sales in Italy jumped 22% year on year to reach 9,615 units over the first nine months of 2018.
Sales of earthmoving machines were up 23% to 9,281 units. Around 5% of sales – 334 machines – was for road machines, according to Unacea, Italy’.
“The positive trend of sales on the Italian market continues also in the third quarter,” said Antonio Strati, Unacea councillor in charge of the statistics activities.
“However, it should be remembered that in term of units, 2018 sales stood at the same levels of the early nineties. The recovery exists, but the persisting uncertainty in national economic policies and the international financial situation can put a strain on it,” he said.
The Italian Institute for Statistics – ISTAT – reported an increase of 0.6% in construction investments in August. According to the Construction Monitor of the Samoter Outlook, this trend will continue until the end of the year, even if in a rough way.
At the base of the restrained development of the sector there would be the suspension of work in numerous infrastructure projects, the difficulties related to the new public procurement legislation and to the implementation of local government budgets.
Meanwhile, in France, earthmoving equipment sales reached 16,940 units, with an increase of only 1% on annual basis. Over 12 rolling months, the sales increased by 4.2%.
Around 17,000 compact earth-moving machines were sold – up 3.8% – and 4,800 units of heavy machines were sold, up by 5.6%. Despite signs that the French compact earth-moving market is slowing down, the level of the market is high, close to that of 2006-2007.
In contrast, the growth rate for France’s heavy equipment market generally is accelerating.
