Big time moves: IC Transport 50 ranking 2025

Mammoet retained its place at the head of the IC Transport 50 table in 2025, albeit by a reduced margin

It is great to be able to report a much better year for the IC Transport 50 ranking of the world’s largest transport companies.

Last year’s 20th Anniversary iteration wasn’t so much to write home about but what a difference a year can make. At 2,171,773 points, the 2025 IC Transport 50 is up 6.7 per cent on the 2,036,177 total from 2024, which itself was only up a paltry 0.14 % on 2023.

The 2025 IC Transport 50 was up more than 6 % on the previous year

Talking of the 2023 table, that one was up in typical style so, maybe, last year was just a short blip.

Back to this year and it was a similarly positive story on almost all the other metrics. Modular equipment (by total carrying capacity in tonnes) was up 6.14 % (nearly 70,000 tonnes) against a 2024 decrease of 4.65 %, or almost 55,000 tonnes. It should be noted some of the variation will be due to different companies being in the T50 from one year to the next. From this, however, maybe the equipment glut and oversupply issue has worked its way through the market.

Specialized trailers were up 7 %, also by the same measure (total carrying capacity in tonnes and in this case 64,000 tonnes) as for the modular equipment categories and by a little more than the strong 6.8 % (58,000 tonne) increase there was last year.

The top 50 companies in the 2025 table employed 59,346 people, up 4 % on the previous year’s 57,081. The number employed has been increasing since 2021. Presumably more people are needed in line with a large amount of extra equipment, to operate, maintain, repair, manage and otherwise handle it.

At 7th place Bay Crane, based in Long Island City, New York, USA, is the highest new or returning company in the 2025 IC Transport 50

The smallest change was in the number of tractor units among the top 50 companies. It was still an increase, however, albeit of just 33 units, or 0.12 %, to a total of 27,380.

Our only parameter showing a decline was the number of depots, down by 3.5 % to a total of 2,157. Having 79 fewer depots among 50 companies doesn’t sound like much but it is still a reduction of 1.5 per company if you average it out.

Even the total number of companies we have in the full table was up, from 86 to 94. We might go ton-up one day. While three companies with old data were cut from the table another 11 new or returning entries were added. Five of them were in the top 50.

IC Transport 50 2025 was up more than 6 per cent

Top 10

This year’s top five is unchanged from last year, topped, as usual by Mammoet. While still just over 100,000 tonnes of capacity ahead of Sarens in second place, it has reduced its fleet, by nearly 6 %, while Sarens’ was unchanged.

First of the movers is Barnhart Crane and Rigging from the USA, up one place to 6, on the back of multiple acquisitions. Taking Barnhart’s place from last year is the first of our new (or returning) entries. Bay Crane, also based in the USA and a frequent acquisitor, is a welcome addition to the table.

The next new or returning company is HWH Transport which just makes it into the top 20. Next of the significant movers is Bragg Heavy Transport, at 24, having moved up from 31st place. It has almost returned to its previous peak fleet capacity which was in 2019.

SMC, this year up again in the T50, used a 250 tonne-rated MAN tractor combined with 12 axle lines of Goldhofer THP hydraulic modules to transport a generator weighing more than 130 tonnes over a distance of nearly 200 km from Nam Van Phong Port, Khanh Hoa, to the Ea Nam wind power project at Dak Lak in Vietnam