Equipment Sales Up and Down

OPEI figures show that riding mowers continue cutting into walk-behind sales.

Bob West

Published March 15, 2002

OLD TOWN ALEXANDRIA, VA. – The economic uncertainty of the last two years has created a number of challenges for different portions of the industry. The Outdoor Power Equipment Institute (OPEI) is an association of power equipment manufacturers, and OPEI has released its most recent statistical profile of the industry. The numbers in this report, which focuses on the year 2000, show that year offered mixed results for manufacturers.

Some of the key findings of the report were:

  • Manufacturers’ average net profit before taxes was a mere 5 percent in 2000, but this was up from 3 percent in 1996. This increase was attributed largely to increased productivity among manufacturers’ employees.
  • A key challenge for manufacturers in the coming years will be complying with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations. In fact, these costs are expected to climb a staggering 28.9 percent from 2000 to 2003, taking manufacturers’ total environmental compliance costs to nearly $40 million.
  • Manufacturers’ most significant product-related expenditure obviously go toward engines, with more than 47 percent of their average components costs providing for engines.
  • About 53 percent of all manufacturers’ shipments of commercial turf equipment went to outdoor power equipment dealers in the U.S. compared to the 10.9 percent that went to wholesales distributors. Meanwhile, 7.2 percent of these products were sent to Canada and 26.3 percent were delivered to other countries.
  • Since 1994, shipments of commercial walk-behind mowers have been consistently between 48,000 and 53,000. More than 32 percent of walk-behind mowers are built and shipped in March and April, just in time for spring delivery to dealers.
  • While the walk-behind category of mowers hasn’t grown appreciably in nearly a decade, the commercial riding mower category has seen explosive growth, driven largely by product innovations such as the mid-mount, zero-turn machines. The number of these machines produced each year more than doubled from 46,000 in 1994 to 115,000 in 2001. Perhaps most impressively, this category even posted 5.5 percent growth last year when most product categories were flat or down.
  • Shipments of snow throwers remain tremendously unpredictable. Manufacturers shipped more than 1 million units in both 1995 and 1997, but that number plummeted to 336,000 in 1999. Shipments for 2000 jumped to about 694,000, but the total then slid back to 608,000 in 2001. More than 53 percent of all snow throwers are sold in November and December each year, so a late winter can significantly hurt sales for that year.
  • The hand-held blower market has also experienced strong growth. Since 1997, shipments in this category have rocketed from approximately 600,000 units to more than 1.5 million last year.
  • Meanwhile, backpack blowers continue becoming more popular, although shipment figures continue to be dwarfed by the hand-held numbers. Approximately 103,000 backpack blowers were shipped in 2001, compared to 64,000 units in 1997.
  • Trimmers/brushcutters remains the largest category of hand-held products with more than 4.5 million units shipped in 2000.

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