Although total sales for JLG, the access equipment segment of parent company Oshkosh, declined in the first quarter of 2011 compared with the previous year, aerial equipment sales to external customers increased more than 50 percent year over year. And JLG’s orders have risen to their highest level since the start of the recession, Oshkosh president Charlie Szews told an investors’ conference call.
The loss of work on a government contract to build MRAP all-terrain vehicles for the military accounted for the overall volume decline.
“Our access equipment business returned to profitability this quarter and continued its recovery with non-M-ATV related sales increasing 73 percent, orders nearly doubling and backlog nearly tripling compared to the prior year’s second quarter,” said Szews. “Multiple new product launches during the quarter were greeted with enthusiasm by our customers and led to robust order intake for these new products.”
Sales to external customers totaled $471.2 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2011, a 72.7-percent hike compared with the previous year’s quarter. JLG posted $737.2 million in fiscal 2010’s second quarter in M-ATV related sales to the defense segment. Including those sales, aerial equipment segment sales dropped 53.3 percent for the quarter, year over year.
Access equipment segment operating income in fiscal Q2 decreased 61.2 percent to $17.7 million, or 3.8 percent of sales, compared with 45.8 million or 4.5 percent of sales the previous year, a decline caused by the decrease of inter-segment sales of defense-related equipment.
JLG is based in McConnellsburg, Pa.
