Interview: How MEWP specialist Mateco is navigating the challenges of EU tariffs, Chinese imports and a difficult European construction market

As a specialist rental company, Mateco is massive. The Luxembourg-headquartered company’s 45,000 strong fleet, spread across 15 countries, comprises 3,000 forklifts, 3,500 telehandlers and around 39,000 aerial platforms - of which 1,500 are truck mounted. 

Andries Schouten, COO, Mateco

With around a third of the company’s mobile elevated work platform fleet produced by Chinese manufacturers, the family-owned firm has been feeling the effects of the European Commission’s decision last year to impose tariffs of between around 20% and 50% on (MEWPs) manufactured in China.

Company COO Andries Schouten, says that the move, which comes in response to complaints that equipment was being ‘dumped’ in the EU, is a symptom of a wider market shake up.

“The world has definitely changed, and the market share – the pie – is going to be divided between a lot more players,” he says.

Schouten says that although Mateco invests in Chinese equipment, it has also been impacted in its role as a dealer for US brands Genie and JLG (both of which manufacture products in China).

“For our rental fleet we do buy Chinese products – mainly Dingli and Zoomlion,” says Schouten. ““We had expected the import duties would be a game changer to balance everything between the traditional brands and the Chinese brands, but I think for us being a Genie and JLG dealer it was disappointing to see the EU import duty was made applicable to Genie and JLG products produced in China. That was not expected. I cannot see any real reason why JLG and Genie are affected by this, and they are certainly not dumping their machines. They have one of the highest price levels in the EU.”

Further tariffs

And the tariffs don’t end there. In just a matter of weeks, further tariffs are set to be imposed in the form of anti-subsidy duties on those same products originating from China, which could add another 10%-15% to the total charges.

Then, says Schouten, “The whole market will be shaken. We are in an in-between phase, and the next three years will give more insight as to where the market will go.”

To make things worse, the tariffs have come in at a time when the Euro zone’s construction sector is suffering its worst decline since the pandemic brought the economy to a near standstill. Rising borrowing costs and increases in raw materials prices are slowing construction starts, prompting many rental firms to hold off on major investment decisions.

Mateco at work in Hamburg.

“Those larger European rental companies that have made big investments in recent years are also now experiencing higher interest rates,” says Schouten. “As a company, we also made a large investment in equipment in 2023 and even 2024 to avoid anti-dumping penalties. But there will not be so much purchasing in 2025 with the stock levels that the Chinese brands now have here, and the tariffs hanging over our heads.”

This, Schouten believes is likely to bring a wave of consolidation among manufacturers, especially within the aerial platforms market.

“There is a lot of smoke around at the moment but in three or so years’ time the smoke will clear, and we will see what is left of this situation,” he says. “The market is changing but is also interesting, I don’t see it as particularly negative. I think it is good that the market is being shaken up.

“Western, manufacturers must learn to produce in a more efficient way to reduce their prices and come up with new designs, specifically fully-electric equipment.” says Schouten. “But China-based brands too [are under pressure too]. They are producing way too many machines – the market cannot handle those volumes. You cannot run a long-term business with dumping, but I assume that they understand that too. And when it comes to service support there is a lot to learn and a long way for [some of them] to come to an acceptable level.”

Schouten believes this is especially true in the telehandler market. “A telehandler is significantly an end user product - about 50% end user, 50% rental. The established manufactures in Europe have had up to 50 years’ experience in setting up a dealer network to sell them,” he says. “If you look at a telehandler, it requires many more parts and a lot more service support so it will be more difficult for [Chinese brands] to enter that market. An AWP requires service but it is doable.”

With more Chinese-made machines entering global markets, Mateco says that it is having to change its strategy for selling off used machines too.

“When you have a fleet of 45,000 units you have a lot of de-fleet, especially with the recent capex investments we have made,” says Schouten. “We used to go to markets like the Middle East and Asia but that is more difficult now -with prices from Chinese manufacturers, and markets like Vietnam and Indonesia developing and investing in more new equipment – so getting rid of used equipment is far more difficult.

Used equipment centre in Mexico

To help solve the problem, Mateco is setting up a used equipment centre in Mexico, where it already operates a 1,000-strong rental fleet. The centre will hold around 300 machines at a time, brought in from Europe, and will supply the whole Latin American region, including other major MEWP markets like Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Columbia.

The average age of the company’s fleet currently stands at around five years and the company generally looks to sell its MEWPs on when they reach seven to nine years of operation.

“We aim to attract a different type of customer who is willing and able to pay a little more for higher quality machines and that is how we can differentiate ourselves in our different countries,” he says. “We are not the sort of company that uses machines, say in the Netherlands, then sends them to one of our other countries for a second life. We want all our countries to have new equipment.”

(IMAGE: Mateco)

Mateco says it plans to continue with its strategy of allowing each country to set its own rental rates and decide its own marketing strategy with the company’s owner Pascal Vanhalst believing firmly in the ability of country managers to decide what approach will work best for each territory.

“The structure of the company is that we encourage entrepreneurship in the different countries. We have a head office in Luxembourg, but we really give a lot of freedom to the country managers,” says Schouten. “We do buy all the machines centrally, and look at what is required in each country, and what we need to shift between them. We have some corporate functions like finance. But we leave as much freedom as possible to the country manager - what is good for Romania is not necessarily good for the Netherlands, and vice versa,” 

This, the company says, leaves local managers free to respond to specific market conditions.

“We believe the local market knows what is best for their fleets, pricing, marketing and as a corporate we are there to support them and we do not tell them what to do. Every country has its own pricing mechanism – it is not something we create centrally. “If you look at 2024, some countries had more trouble than others, including Poland, Belgium and the Czech Republic,” he says.

“Germany in 2024 was actually flat for us, so that was quite a good result considering the general market situation. Romania and Hungary did quite well, and in Belgium prices almost did not change except for transportation. In Spain generally prices went up in specific product groups, but not including RT scissors as construction is still quite slow.”

Mateco’s approach to electrification 

Similarly, Mateco’s approach to electrification is being largely taken on a country by country - and a equipment type by equipment type - basis.

Today around 65% -75% of Mateco’s fleet, including slab scissors is fully electric and Schouten says he expects this to increase rapidly as larger electric RT booms start to become available.

“That percentage will increase for sure. I’m sure in five years’ time 85% will be electric,” he says. “Where we see opportunities to invest in full electric we do. We aim to invest not only the larger straight booms but as big articulating models become available then we will invest in them as well.”

However, Schouten says that electric RT booms make up around 30% of the total boom fleet. And the company is shifting up the working height spectrum with investments in more electric 28m working height booms to complement the already established 20m offering.

However, there is a different arrangement for the company’s small electric rough terrain MEWP and scissor lift fleets which, despite their importance to the energy transition currently see little demand outside of Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium.

Currently just 5% of the company’s RT scissor lift fleet is made up of electric units.

In order to provide customers with these machines, the company has set up non-country specific Special Equipment Division to offer less mainstream products like larger electric RT booms and scissors, rather than burdening them on specific country’s fleets.

“Electric RT equipment is still rather new, and we want to offer it to customers, but utilisation is still on the low side,” Schouten says. “We are not doing a lot of investment in RT scissors as a product group anyway, as the market for them is slow at the moment.”

Meanwhile, Metaco is avoiding hybrid machines altogether.

“We are absolutely not a fan of hybrid. We believe hybrid is just an in-between solution,” he adds. “It’s complicated for the customer, and even our own people. It’s double the maintenance, and the used value is low. So, we basically do not invest in hybrid, but we do believe full electric, especially with lithium batteries.”

“The big problem is that customers are screaming for electric, or even hybrid solutions, but they are not willing to pay any more money for them. They may need to put them down in their job permit requests, but in reality many will continue to use diesel machines,” Schouten adds. “Charging Infrastructure depends on the country, here in the Netherlands, where I have my office, it’s not an issue to have a fully electric machine on a job site - there is electricity available.

Ultimately, Mateco says, it believes the market still has space for a predominently European MEWP rental specialist across 15 countries.

“We still believe in being a specialist. It really brings a lot of added value to your customers when you know what you are talking about. It’s impossible to give full service and support if you offer 800 different products,” he says.  “We are in close contact with the customer - giving them the right advice. When there is a problem, we solve it in two or three hours - that is where we try and make a difference.”

As such, Schouten says the company has no great plans either to expand its product offering or to open new depots.

“We have no real desire to go into new countries,” says Schouten. “We will look at organic growth and acquisition if there is an opportunity, but the real goal is to become more professional and more efficient in the countries that we operate in.”

“We are investing a lot in real estate, offices and workshops to bring efficiency,” he says. “If you want to attract professional people you have to invest in professional workspaces. We have 150 locations across the company and want to become stronger in the countries in which we are active.”