US non-residential construction spending is recovering at a modest pace with the bulk of the upswing expected in 2014 and 2015, according to a quarterly report from United Rentals Inc.

"We're seeing more demand," says Michael Kneeland, chief executive officer and president. "While the upswing is modest compared to what we think we'll see next year, it has given us enough traction to grow the business. But there's more than just the construction recovery behind our revenue improvement, and we're executing our strategy extremely well in this environment."

United Rentals is sensitive to the pricing practices of its equipment suppliers.

"We're in discussions with suppliers about next year's purchases," William Plummer said during a conference call. He is chief financial officer and executive vice president of Stamford-based United Rentals.

"We feel very good about our ability to keep our overall inflation in the low - in the very low single digits on a year-over-year basis," Plummer reported. "There will be some impacts to final Tier 4 configurations of some Cat classes. But when you blend the impact of price increases for final Tier 4 in with the overall purchases, we're still going to be in the very low single digits."

For the third quarter ended 30 September, United Rentals had profit of USD143 million on sales of USD1.31 billion versus profit of USD73 million on sales of USD1.22 billion for the comparable 2012 quarter.

United Rentals says it has about 12% marketshare, based on 2012 equipment rental revenues from construction and industrial equipment as measured by the American Rental Association.

As of 31 December, United had 836 rental locations in the US and Canada and had a fleet of about 400,000 units, including those obtained through the 2012 acquisition of RSC Holdings Inc of Scottsdale, Arizona.

Broad-based competitors of United Rentals in the US market include Hertz Equipment Rental Corp (HERC) and Sunbelt Rentals.

As of 31 March, HERC of Park Ridge, New Jersey had 340 branches in the US, Canada, France, Spain, China and Saudi Arabia. Equipment rental revenues were USD384.3 million for the three months ended 30 June, up from USD335.0 million in the corresponding quarter last year.

Sunbelt Rentals of Fort Mill, South Carolina had rental revenues of USD457.2 million for the three months ended 30 April, up 23% from the comparable year-earlier period. Sunbelt has locations in 34 states and the District of Columbia. Sunbelt Rentals is a wholly owned subsidiary of London-based Ashtead Group plc.