Bobcat to now offer forklifts and warehouse equipment in widened portfolio of products

Staff Report,

8 Dec 2023

Compact equipment leader to produce sister company Doosan Industrial Vehicles’ material handling machines under its own brand from January next year

Bobcat is all set to offer forklift trucks and warehouse equipment in its portfolio of products available for customers, with products from sister company Doosan Industrial Vehicles (DIV) becoming part of the Bobcat family.

Bobcat has announced that the material handling machines from DIV will be produced in the well-known Bobcat colours from January 1, 2024. Announcing the move, a statement from Bobcat said: “The logistics market has recently acquired a new brand of forklift trucks: Bobcat”, adding that the brand, famous globally for its an extensive range of compact machines, is a natural home for the logistics equipment that was available under the DIV brand until now.

Bobcat products are used in construction, agriculture, landscaping, demolition, recycling and many other industries. Bobcat loaders and telehandlers, which can be equipped with attachments such as buckets, grabs, bale clamps, dump hoppers and pallet forks, are already often used for material handling and logistics tasks. This makes it no surprise that DIV equipment is now being brought under the Bobcat brand, said the statement.

The history of Bobcat forklift trucks goes back to 1968 when the first forklift truck was produced in South Korea under the Daewoo brand. In 2005, the company was taken over by Doosan, after which DIV was founded in 2011 as part of Doosan Infracore. In 2021, Doosan Bobcat took over the company and all of the elements of the organisation. These include two factories in Incheon (Korea) and Yanta (China), where forklifts are produced, and a factory in Lübben (Germany) where pallet trucks and stackers are made. The company is currently active in more than 90 countries.

The Bobcat range for logistics and material handling equipment now consists of various product lines: a series of diesel forklift trucks with lifting capacities from 2 to 16 tons; a series of LPG forklift trucks with lifting capacities from 2 to 7 tons and a series of electric forklift trucks with lifting capacities from 1.2 to 10 tons. The latter segment also includes a line of electric forklifts with three wheels for light work from 1.2 to 2 tons. The warehouse solutions include pallet trucks, stackers and reach trucks.

During the last LogiMAT exhibition in Stuttgart in Germany, Doosan Bobcat introduced a number of new machines. The new B80NS forklift truck was on display, which is part of a series of electric counterbalanced forklift trucks with lifting capacities of 8 and 10 tons. In addition, two prototypes were on display: the 3-wheel B18NT electric forklift with a lithium battery and the B30X-7 Plus hydrogen forklift.

The DIV website states that the company strives to bring simple and powerful machines to the market that offer the driver a lot of comfort and that are also environmentally friendly. These ambitions make it clear that the two companies are a great fit, because Bobcat's principles are virtually the same.

Bobcat added in its statement that both companies also invest heavily in innovation to develop valuable and reliable products for their customers, so that they can perform their work efficiently and get optimal return on their investment. Thanks to the integration into Doosan Bobcat, DIV can benefit from Bobcat's extensive R&D facilities, a number of exciting machine management innovations, marketing know-how and Bobcat's extensive dealer network, while Bobcat now has a virtually complete portfolio of compact machines.