IC Transport 50 2023 TopList

Trungnam SMC from Vietnam is a new entry this year in the T50, in at 49th place. In the pictured project it supplied Scheuerle SPMT to help Sarens load out a 4,231 tonne jacket. The load out and the load in each required 168 axle lines of SPMT and eight power pack units. Photo: Trungnam

Following on from it being a good year for our well-known crane-owning company ranking, the IC100, it is also a strong result we see here for the IC Transport 50 ranking for specialized transport companies. Incidentally, probably about 40 per cent of the IC100 crane companies also have big enough transport equipment fleets to be considered for the IC T50 but let’s explore that another time.

Starting with a headline figure the total fleet index for all 84 of this year’s T50 entries was 2,223,678 tonnes. Last year’s total (79 companies) was 2,069,217 tonnes. For consistency, however, let’s look at the totals for the top 50 companies. This year’s 2,033,377 total was up 5.3 per cent on last year’s 1,930,745 tonnes. That difference is 102,632 tonnes more load capacity than last year, spread among the world’s 50 largest companies in the sector – a lot of extra trailers.

In this year’s IC T50, seven of the top 10 companies increased their fleets and two stayed the same. The one showing a decrease was perennial leader Mammoet, having reduced its fleet capacity by 9,905 tonnes or -2.5 per cent. While second place Sarens may be running a fleet about half the size of Mammoet, it added considerably to it in the last year, helping to narrow the gap to 232,004 tonnes, from the 259,060 tonne gap last year.

The top three companies have held firm in their positions from last year, remaining unchanged since 2020. In the top 10 the first change is Landstar, up to 4th place from 6 last year, trading places with Daseke. Landstar increased its capacity by 23,760 tonnes or 31 per cent, to a fleet total of 99,665 tonnes. Daseke also added to its fleet but only by 0.4 per cent.

Looking by equipment type there was a big difference again this year between the two main categories. Last year the amount of modular trailer and dolly capacity was up by 0.6 per cent and this year it is up by 2.12 per cent (24,523 tonnes). Specialized trailer capacity, however, is up by a whopping 11 per cent, or 83,548 tonnes. Now that really is a lot more trailers in one year. If you divided it into say 50 tonne capacity trailers, that would be an extra 1,670 units.

Transportes Montejo hard at work on the road in Colombia. Photo: Transportes Montejo

It really is everything that is higher than last year. The number of employees among the top 50 companies increased from 49,530 to 52,946 – up 7 per cent or 3,416 more people working at the top 50 companies. There were even more depots, up 1 per cent, to 2,495.

An extra 764 tractor units was added to last year’s total of 26,105 – that is 3 per cent more – and it should be emphasised that these are additions on top of the existing fleet, not replacements.

Coming full circle, of the five total new entries in the full table this year, two of them made the top 50. One of those, Al Faris from Dubai, UAE, was close to entering the top 10. The other is Trungnam SMC from Vietnam, squeezing in at number 49.

Other significant gainers this year include Bragg and WO Grubb from USA, Sankyu from Japan, in 24th place up from 30, and Locar from Brazil, in 50th place last year and now in 47th.