Even after the rise and explosion of telehandlers on the material handling market, rough terrain forklifts and vertical mast lift trucks could be found lifting and moving various goods and materials on jobsites all over the world. There have been many other conventional lift trucks that lost market share to telehandlers. This happened specially when the challenger broke onto the construction scene. Ever since that time, sales numbers have stabilized. Vertical-mast lift trucks have re-emerged and seem to be becoming more popular once more thanks to their greater efficiency, lower cost and alteration of some telehandler-like features.
The straight mast forklift can finish double the work as a telehandler because of their excellent maneuverability and handling in addition to their better ground speed. Interestingly enough, rental companies are beginning to charge higher rates on straight-mast units.
Within the rough-terrain forklift business, rental buyers have been having a greater influence. More than 50 percent of all vertical-mast forklifts are now being sold to a rental yard. These acquisitions are usually driven mostly by use, which is a factor closely followed by purchase price.
The telehandler has become a very common machine in the material handling industry. Their popularity has given them a better advantage in terms of rental utilization. Their overall expansion has been moderated by their higher price. There is some forklift users who feel that telehandlers are not practically as useful compared to traditional rough-terrain lift trucks for loading and unloading repetitive tasks. This means that although competition amongst telehandler marketers has lowered their prices, many prefer the RT lift trucks that have been working well for decades.
In comparison, the telehandler is ganglier, a little slower 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 always be a place within the business for lift trucks though, since there are places that you could not access with a telehandler.
Rough terrain lift trucks are usually compact equipment, smaller but more able to lift a heavier load vertically as opposed to the telehandler. Essentially, in order to utilize the best equipment for your application, you would need to determine what jobs exactly you will be accomplishing, the kind of setting and circumstances you will be operating in and what your load capacity is. All these factors would help you choose what the best options available are.