Linde claims to be the largest supplier of short-term hire forklifts in the UK.

Linde Material Handling UK, which claims to be a market leader in the UK, has further strengthened its forklift hire fleet.

The addition of 200-plus forklifts, two of which are heavy trucks with 45 T capacities, will "further enhance Linde as the largest supplier of short-term hire trucks now totaling around 10,000 machines in the UK".

Linde (UK) marketing executive Emma Clitheroe tells Forkliftaction.com News the company has a "known utilisation figure" informing it that it hires out more trucks than the fleet size of its competitors. "This is based on data from the Internet as all of our competitors state the size of their fleets."

The UK forklift supplier regularly reviews its fleet to ensure it has the correct age profile and sufficient trucks to meet market demand.

While Linde (UK) boasts it has "more than twice" the amount of trucks for hire compared to its nearest competitor, Clitheroe will only reveal that the company's competitors are "a handful of other bigger forklift companies in the UK".

Clitheroe adds that competition is varied in the UK - from local provision to national approaches. "Our structure and operation allows us to support all of the customers, irrespective of their size and requirements, in that we can offer both local and full national support."

She says that for general use, Linde's most popular short-term hire truck is the 2.5 T internal combustion engine counterbalance forklift.

Last year, Linde invested GBP2.9 million (USD4.6 million) in adding 150 units to its forklift hire fleet (Forkliftaction.com #592), and aimed to ensure that all the new trucks were in place before the peak-period of Christmas.

Linde Material Handling has been developing its forklift hire service for the past 20 years. The company's UK fleet is serviced by a nationwide network of 20 support centres.