You could buy Three Mercedes Benz S 320 for the Price of one Rolls Royce Phantom Will Rolls Royce say this no. Linde are entering markets that are mainly price driven unlike their majority market of Germany and France , This is one reason that Linde have not until now done well in North America one of the world biggest markets ( lets see how the new developed 1411 does) Fuel economy does not come into this. But to say most customers in the Middle east will buy low cost Chinese trucks is not true either. The best sellers are Toyota , Hyundai, Hyster Cat

Even now the top manufactures have got low cost trucks KION (Linde) Baoli , Toyota now have bought a majority in Tailift so you can not just say or the are cheap Chinese because there are also the big companies as well. Toyota do so well because they offer the customer what he wants No fancy electronics in Noth America and other markets , But they do in Europe and with the new Hydrostatic trucks they will take sales away from Linde in Europe.

Its not about price , It will allways come down to innovation service and what the customer wants

I just read the article and the Linde guy makes sense to me.

The Middle East is the obvious meeting point of Premium machines typically made for the European/American market and budget (typically Chinese) manufactured machines which are often built to be 'spec low/price low' options to break open foreign markets to Chinese manufacturers.

I suppose the choice of which a business really needs is down to the criticality of having efficient and reliable machines in the long term, and not just a cheap initial investment.

If I were a betting man, I'd say the costs of repairing initially cheap machines (which frequently break down) will very quickly outstrip the benefits of any lower initial purchase cost.

Add to this the fuel economy and parts availability question (where undoubtedly Premium manufacturers excel) and I think you have a compelling reason to buy quality even if it does cost more.

Which is basically what the Linde man said here...

The Middle east Market is price driven, the Lower your price the more chance of selling. This market doesn't like the costly tec that is fitted to the modern day trucks. Just basic trucks that will move pallets or materials around. The linde person's claim that you can be three low cost trucks to one premium truck (Linde being a premium Truck) doesn't go down well. Linde also claim they have around 9% market share when in reality it would be around 4%. The cost of repairing a Linde to say a lower priced model even say not Chinese but say a Hyundai, Cat , Doosan is much more. Linde do claim to have a much better fuel economy but when a gallon of diesel is under 70 cent's US in Saudi then this is not really a big an issue as the cost of the trucks a the repairing cost of the trucks

IMHO there's something wrong, either with the Linde guy, who was interviewed, either how the magazine interpreted his words.
This, what was written, is total anti-marketing for Linde.

I believe, that Linde salesmen rather could say, that 1 Linde truck can replace 3 low quality machines, or when you buy 3 Linde trucks, within a year or two you can save money for the fourth just because of of low operation/service costs.
This is, what Linde used to say when I was working for them.

Morgy ive got to disagree with you. I dont know about where you are but over here the market isnt price driven its quality driven. Look at who shifts the most machines year on year in Europe its not Heli, Samuk etc its Linde, Toyota, Nacco, crown(not in that order) etc yes you could buy 2 cheap rubbish machines for less then the Linde but customers don't want any breakdowns at all. I can guarantee as well you will come to a situation when both machines go down at the same time. You get what you pay for in this game pay peanuts and get rubbish

Karait has the point according to the interview Linde say's You can buy Three to the price of One. So if you bought two lower priced trucks one to cover the brake downs then you would still be in front. It just seems strange for Linde to say you can have three to the price of one in a market that is very price driven.

I don't know, what is Linde pricing policy on Middle East, but here, in central Europe Linde IC is more or less on the same pricing level as Jungheinrich, Still, Toyota or Yale/Hyster.
Middle shelf machines (like Cesab, Doosan, Mitsu/Cat are about 10% cheaper.
Chinese trucks (the better ones like Heli or HC/Hangcha) are about 30-40% cheaper.
The issue is - most of the premium brands are produced in Europe, so you have, domestically, highly developed sales and service support, realtively short delivery times, no customs problems, etc.
For the chinese parts you must wait sometimes several weeks, so if you want to have your bussiness running without obstruction, you must buy two chinese machines. There is a chance that at least one will be alive when you wait for the parts for another.

Linde do make really good hydrostatic IC counter balance machines, there well built, very easy to work on for us technicians & very rarely give any trouble during normal usage.

But now that Toyota are ( finally ) offering hydrostatic transmission option on the Tonero, I can see this really eating in to Linde's market share.

The Tonero offer's option of a torque convertor OR hydrostatic transmission when you spec the truck plus you have the SAS System of Active Stability safety system as standard.

I've seen customer's pick the cheapest option before when selecting a new fork truck, they soon learn from there mistake.

Maybe but in 5 years time the Line will still be going strong while your basic (probably Chinese) lifts will all be scrap. In this world you get what you pay for and with MHE its even truer Linde, Crown, Jungheinrich Toyota etc sell because they are dont want not to have to buy 3 trucks because 2 of them will