Strong Specialty, Manufacturing Growth and Mega Projects Make United Rentals Optimistic About 2025, Flannery Says

United Rentals continued its strong specialty rental growth in 2024, a trend it expects to continue to surge in 2025, CEO Matthew Flannery told a conference call of investors this week.

“Specialty rental revenue grew an impressive 24 percent year over year and a strong 15 percent even if you exclude the benefits of the Yak acquisition,” Flannery said. “Our cross-selling efforts helped fuel growth across all of our product offerings, and furthermore we added 15 cold starts in the quarter, putting us at 57 year to date.”

Flannery said third quarter growth trends were similar to the second quarter. “We saw growth in both construction, led by non-res, and our industrial end markets with particular strength in manufacturing. It will come as no surprise that we again had multiple new projects in the quarter across data centers, airports, healthcare and battery manufacturing, to name a few.”

In the used market, United sold a third quarter record amount of equipment, speaking to the strengths of demand in the marketplace. “As we replace this equipment and buy additional fleet to meet our customer needs, we spend almost $1.3 billion on capex in the third quarter,” Flannery said. “We continue to see opportunity to put fleet on rent and our full-year guidance reflects a tightened capex range with the midpoint unchanged.”

Flannery said United has good momentum heading into 2025, which is looking like another strong year of growth, Flannery added. “The tailwinds for a multitude of large complex projects are still in the early innings, and we believe we’re uniquely positioned as the partner of choice with our customer. To support these initiatives, we continue to make investments in optimizing operations for both ourselves and our customers. For example, we’re investing in our next generation telematics products which help customers gain new insights into their own operations and allow our technicians to prioritize their workflow and best manage our fleet.

Tool tracking system

United Rentals recently announced an innovative new technology. “Our ProBox OnDemand is a Bluetooth-enabled automated tool tracking system which ensures workers have the right tools where and when they need them, and tracks tools in real time to significantly reduce worksite loss,” Flannery said

In other developments, Flannery talked about the staff in the field responding quickly to customer needs after devastating damage caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

“In both instances, we were immediate to respond, putting our proven United Rentals playbook to work and providing our customers with the support needed to start the clean-up and rebuild process,” Flannery said.

Flannery is optimistic about the coming year. “The tailwinds that we talk about with mega projects, infrastructure and the like really plays to our one-stop shop full-value offering,” he said. “That also helps specialty drive more growth.”

Flannery said the company will announce its capex plans in the next conference call in January after it solidifies its planning process.

For a further look at United Rentals' Q3 numbers, visit: https://www.rermag.com/news-analysis/headline-news/article/55237798/united-rentals-almost-hits-4-billion-in-total-third-quarter-revenue