BITA secretary general James Clark

The UK forklift market grew by 3.5% with just over 31,000 units sold in the 2007 calendar year.

According to data from the British Industrial Truck Association (BITA), 2007 was the fourth consecutive year in which over 30,000 forklifts were ordered from UK suppliers. (2004: 32,213; 2005: 31,137; 2006: 30,111)

Orders for low-level order pickers increased the most, 25% over 2006 with 2,200 orders placed. The number of internal combustion engine counterbalanced forklifts rose 2.3% to 10,930 units while warehouse truck sales grew 4.9% to 14,229 units.

However, the market volume increase was not across the board and sales of several truck types fell.

Orders for reach trucks fell 7% to 3,038 units while orders for powered pallet trucks fell 8.7% to 5,800 units. While reach trucks and pallet trucks make up 40% of the UK's total forklift sales for 2007, BITA notes that 2006 was a record year for the overall market and "comparisons may not be indicative of the overall market".

BITA secretary general James Clark says it is difficult to predict the strength of the 2008 UK forklift market as "business confidence in some sectors is not as strong" as before.

"However, the market has shown a good degree of resilience over recent years. Although BITA expects 2008 to be a challenging year for its members, we expect it to be another rewarding year."

Details of UK orders and deliveries are reported every month by members of BITA's Truck Suppliers' Group using exclusive computer software. All contributing members receive aggregated monthly and year-to-date figures on a confidential basis.

Twenty-four UK-based companies provided data for the 2007 statistics. Of this number, four manufacture in the UK while the rest import mainly from Europe, Japan, Korea and China.

BITA represents 82 forklift manufacturers, suppliers, service providers and media operating in the UK. As a member of the British Materials Handling Foundation, it is allied with the Fédération Européenne de la Manutention.