Page 20 - OPE MARCH 2019

MARKETPLACE
Chippers, Stump Grinders & Log Splitters
ELECTRICS
TO CONTINUE GROWING SHARE
OF CHIPPER MARKET
I SPOKE FIRST to BE Pressure’s John Lahman, who reports that 2018 was kind for
the company’s sales with the log splitter market continuing to grow in New Zealand.
“It’s a little bit seasonal but the market’s pretty buoyant for us at the moment in splitters. We’ve got a couple of new variants in the models coming through within the next few months but it’s pretty much business as usual with splitters, they come in and they go out,” he says.
Hydralada’s Steve Cartwright has also noted a buoyant market for chippers and chipper related products in the past year with the main increases seen in general domestic arboriculture in the wider Auckland region.
As for what’s behind this growth, he feels that there is a growing cultural trend for people to step away from the DIY mind-set that we so closely associate with the New Zealand psyche to the DIFM (Do It For Me) model.
“I think that increasingly there’s
a general mind-set in New Zealand consumers that is moving away from doing their own manual labour.
“It’s possible that the average wage earner may have a little more cash at their disposal which may also be contributing to this,” says Steve Cartwright.
Not enough hands on deck
When I last spoke to Steve Cartwright, he was keen to unload a range of new Bandit stump grinders that were waiting for him down at the port.
Following up on this I asked him how the new range has been received.
“They are going really well and the increases in sales in that area have been right across the board,” he says.
One of the big factors in this uptake has been that many of the contractors that Steve deals with have increasingly been struggling to get qualified staff.
“That’s a big reason why the push has been to have more efficient machinery so the existing team can get through more work.
“So there has been more of a push to bigger machines so one team can actually be more productive because they can’t get enough people.”
Steve Cartwright believes the deficit of younger blood is being most keenly seen in arboriculture.
“The guys that climb the tree with
a chainsaw don’t actually do that for more than eight or 10 years as it’s quite strenuous and they tend to move onto something else by the time they get into their early to mid-30s.
“So if young people aren’t coming through that’s leaving a big void in that
industry.”
Expanding on staffing issues, like
many in the outdoor power channel, Steve Cartwright feels that a lack of new people can be at least partly blamed on an education system that has tended to channel students toward university rather than trades in the last couple of decades.
“A lot of these students are going through their university training and then can’t get a job at the end of it.
“So schools need to be promoting more trades because in many cases the job that suits these young people and that they will enjoy is something that their minds have been set against.”
Bigger not better?
For a different perspective on the category, I spoke to Hansa Managing Director Martin Vogel, who reports
a positive past year for the Hamilton company with growth in some market segments and steady sales in others.
Referring to changes in the category, Martin has noted more demand for specialised equipment in tree care with some businesses looking to establish their own unique selling points and reduce operating costs.
“We are seeing a shift away from the traditional attitude of ‘bigger and heavier is better’ as some companies recognise the costs of capital investment and operating expenses in equipment that is larger than that required,” he says.
A REPORT BY market research
company Credence Research forecasts that by 2026 the global market for wood chippers is set to grow at a modest 2.3% CAGR from a base of US$302.4 million reported in 2017.
The report also forecast that while petrol-driven models remain the leaders
in the market, electric models are forecast to take “a considerable share in the overall wood chipper machines market” in the next seven years.
We’re presuming they’re talking about principally domestic scale chippers here.
www.credenceresearch.com/report/ wood-chipper-machines-market
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