Old thread, but somewhat surprising to see that the initial question has not been correctly answered. You can't look at the total numbers. Counterbalance trucks are sold in quite equal volumes in EU vs NA, electrics have 50/50 share in Europe but only about 1/4 in North America. There are some 20% more warehouse trucks sold in Europe, but that's still a smaller difference. What throws the numbers off is the fact that there are about 100,000 more class 3 trucks sold in Europe. These are mostly small electric walkies used in retail and distribution. Stores use these electric pallet jacks instead of hand trucks, but the real difference is that in Europe almost every on-highway truck (lorry for our UK friends) will have a walkie pallet jack for loading and unloading the goods. Here in the US, the trailers are loaded and unloaded by forklifts based at the facilities they go to.
So, the only real difference between Europe and North America is this class of small walk behind pallet jacks that almost doesn't exist here in the US. Just my two cents.