Even after the rise and explosion of telehandlers on the material handling business, rough terrain lift trucks and vertical mast lift trucks can be found lifting and transporting different products and supplies on jobsites around the world. There have been numerous other conventional lift trucks that lost market share to telehandlers. This occurred especially when the challenger broke onto the construction scene. Since that time, sales numbers have stabilized. Vertical-mast forklifts have re-emerged and seem to be becoming more popular again due to their greater efficiency, adaptation of some telehandler-like features and low cost.
Straight-mast machinery will complete double the job that a telehandler would do due to their maneuverability and ground speed. Interestingly enough, rental outfits are starting to charge higher rates on straight-mast units.
Rental buyers are having significant influence in the rough-terrain lift truck industry. More than half of all vertical-mast lift trucks are now being sold to a rental yard. These purchases are generally driven mainly by utilization, that is a factor closely followed by acquisition price.
The telehandler has become an extremely popular equipment in the material handling business. Their popularity has given them a better advantage when it comes to rental utilization. Their overall expansion has been moderated by their higher price. There is several forklift users who feel that telehandlers are not practically as useful as opposed to conventional rough-terrain lift trucks for unloading and loading repetitive tasks. This means that even if competition among telehandler marketers has lowered their prices, a lot choose the RT forklifts that have been working well for decades.
In comparison, the telehandler is a little slower, ganglier to operate and requires a higher level of skillfulness to finish the task. On the upside, they get the reach if they need it. There would continuously be a place within the industry for lift trucks however, as there are locations that you will not be able to access with a telehandler.
The rough-terrain forklift is compact, small and able to carry a heavier load vertically as opposed to the telehandler. Essentially, in order to utilize the best machinery for your application, you would need to determine what jobs exactly you would be accomplishing, the kind of conditions and environment you will be operating in and what your load capacity is. These factors will help you choose what the right alternatives available are.