Martin Placek
Research expert covering transportation and electronics
Caterpillar - statistics & facts
Caterpillar Inc. is the world’s leading construction and mining equipment maker. The company was originally established in 1925 with the merger of the Hold Manufacturing Company along with the C.L. Best Tractor Company, effectively creating the Caterpillar Tractor Company. Although founded in California, the company is now headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois. Caterpillar's commanding position among construction equipment manufacturers is challenged by the likes of Komatsu, Terex Corporation, and John Deere.
Financial performance of Caterpillar
In the 2023 fiscal year, the manufacturing giant reported global sales and revenue streams of some 67 billion U.S. dollars. Along with reaching peak sales in 2012, the company’s workforce increased to almost 128,000 employees worldwide in that same year. However, since then the company has downsized its workforce, which stood at around 113,000 employees in 2023.Competitive forces in the global equipment market
Some of Caterpillar's competitors in the global equipment market are Japan's Komatsu and Hitachi, U.S.' John Deere, and Switzerland-based Liebherr. Due to the company’s vast global distribution, Komatsu’s global net sales amounted to around 3.9 trillion Japanese yen in the fiscal year ended March 2023. Hitachi Ltd. is a multinational engineering and electronics conglomerate. The industrial giant is active in many fields, including external disk storage systems, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems, transportation equipment, construction equipment, thermal power generation systems and nuclear reactors.
