Will some tractor makers not survive?

[sixdogs]

It's a dog eat dog tractor market out there and is there room for everyone to survive? Will some makers fall by the wayside much the way others have over the past 100 or so years? Any thoughts on who will make it and who won't? Why or why not?

 

[ESBkevin]

Re: Will some tractor makers not surviive?

The simpler established technologies like the small and medium indian makers have a world market, this will continue. The cutting edge technology will have a place at a premium price but there will be mergers and takeovers and no one is exempt. The traditional Japanese makers sell on qaulity but are feeling stratched by the budget manufacturing elsewhere in Asia. So for me all bets are off, history tells us the great can go to the wall and the larger producers are not immune to the forces of the free market economy.

 

[MessickFarmEqu]

No one will know until consumer spending takes a hit. For some time its been fairly easy for these companies all to survive. One of the smaller players seems to come and go every few years.

 

[houstonscott]

This question hinges on the world economy, which looks bad right now. China is not really a good market, they are communists and have a record of letting company's build a factory and then after they learn the technology nationalize the factory's and throw out the foreign company. Small tractors will continue to sell as people are forced to farm on small properties to eat. USA doesn't really build small tractors or small diesels, and is out of the market. I think Japan, and S Korea are in the drivers seat. If JD doesn't do something to stop Kubota, you might see a day where the only thing they make are combines. Yanmar, Kubota, LS are positioned best in world market. NH and Kubota in Europe. JD for the very big stuff, but I would say they have lost the CUT battle and are loosing the 100HP market fast to Kubota and MF. HS

 

[Ford850]

I thought Kubota always ruled the CUT market, and everyone else tried to compete with them by rebranding imports.

 

[art]

From the start of the compacts Kubota has lead the market with quality as well as innovation. Still the market leader in compacts in this country by a good margin with jd behind them making up 1/2 the market with those two brands alone. Mahindra is coming in third with about 15% and the rest of the players split the remaining roughly 30 percent between the next ten companies.

 

[AxleHub]

From the start of the compacts Kubota has lead the market with quality as well as innovation. Still the market leader in compacts in this country by a good margin with jd behind them making up 1/2 the market with those two brands alone. Mahindra is coming in third with about 15% and the rest of the players split the remaining roughly 30 percent between the next ten companies.

Art, if Mahindra is 15% . . is that 15% of the U.S. market or is that for North America or ???

Also . . we've seen a dramatic rise in U.S. unit sales since start of 2010. However, I wonder if we were to see a chart of gross dollar sales over the same period . . it would likely be a much less exciting pattern . . as farm tractor sales have not kept up their momentum in the ladt few years . . And certainly it takes many scut and small cut sales to compensate for the large equipment sales drop off.

 

[varmint]

Just thinking this morning: If Trump were to win, and the country go on a wild swing to who knows where, creating more instability in the world, combined with the building chaos in Europe and the Mideast, markets for tractors could be really affected. Even if it's more of the same with Clinton at the helm, Europe has some mounting problems with migrants and refugees that will cause economic changes, at best. Sorry to bring politics into the mix, but they might prove part of the answer to the OP's query.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Political policy is always the root of all evil, so, the political policies of all countries affects growth and prosperity either positively of negatively. Trying to predict how, who, when a company may fail is at best a crapshoot.

 

[4570Man]

I think it's obvious that some won't survive. Few manufacturers of the past survived. What makes it any different today?

 

[houstonscott]

I think tractor sales are so regional worldwide none of the current manufacturers are going under, they may concentrate in other markets, abandon others, but I think a turn down in world economy is good new for small tractor manufacturing, as people will be motivated to grow and do their own work. HS

 

[sixdogs]

Who will make the cut and who won't? Who survives?

 

[houstonscott]

Who will make the cut and who won't? Who survives?

They all survive. HS

 

[houstonscott]

I think it's obvious that some won't survive. Few manufacturers of the past survived. What makes it any different today?

What makes it different is the manufactures today are the survivors. HS

 

[4570Man]

What makes it different is the manufactures today are the survivors. HS

Not quite. There's lots of newer brands out there. Now, the age of their parent company is unknown.

 

[roadhunter]

Who will make the cut and who won't? Who survives?

Those with the best dealers. Some of the "dealers" these brands use are anything but knowledgeable about tractors.

 

[adventure bob]

Dealer networks aside, there will always be tractors for sale. They may not be the ones you used before or the ones the work like the ones you previously had. Eventually someone will even replace the venerable john deere. There will catastrophic change to the industry that they will either not see or will not accept and they will become defunct. However there will still be need to work with plants in dirt on a large scale. There will still be a need to move materials for various purposes. The concept of a "tractor" wont go away, it just may not look like what we have today.
Some tractor brands will however go away because their dealer network sucks.

 

[houstonscott]

Not quite. There's lots of newer brands out there. Now, the age of their parent company is unknown.

Can you name one. HS

 

[AxleHub]

Can you name one. HS

How about TYM ? (And as a result of purchase . . It means Branson too).

 

[4570Man]

Can you name one. HS

Kioti, Branson, LS, TYM, Bobcat. Again I don't know the age of the parent company. But they're all fairly new brands.