The Monaghan-based forklift manufacturer Combilift is poised to grow its exports to the United States by more than 10 per cent this year amid surging demand from companies like Tesla and Google.
According to Combilift chief executive Martin McVicar, the company has completely offset any negative impact from US tariffs on steel products and is riding the wave of the data centre construction boom.
“We are going to see a 10 to 12 per cent growth in our US market this year,” McVicar said.
“With the data centres, there is so much construction needed. Steel fabricators are using our products. Companies like Tesla are using our straddle carriers to move 30 to 40 tonne battery packs in their factories.
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“Google is a big customer. They are using our smaller forklift trucks to move components while they are constructing data centres. A lot of companies are on that wave”.
McVicar said the company had more than 50 staff on the ground in the US, with plans to grow its presence there. It has a parts distribution centre in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The Combilift boss said the imposition of tariffs on forklifts had been entirely passed on to its US customers this year after a brief 50-50 sharing arrangement in 2025.
This, combined with a surge in investment in artificial intelligence, has meant the company has been able to ride out the worst impacts from the tariffs, he said.
Combilift is among several Irish companies that have seen their fortunes improved by the rush to build data centres in Europe and the US – as hundreds of billions of dollars have flowed into the industry.
Construction companies such as John Paul, Sisk and Kirby have been involved in the construction of several significant European centres, while Cavan building materials group Kingspan recently announced the €900 million purchase of data centre supplier BMC.
Dublin-headquartered building materials giant CRH has also been cashing in on the US boom.
Other growth sectors in the US have, meanwhile, bolstered Combilift’s bottom line.
It has benefited from increased demand for prefabricated houses and factory construction. McVicar said the rise in prefabrication was in part due to high manual labour costs in the housing sector.
“We’ve already increased our workforce. It is 15 per cent higher in the US this year compared to two years ago. We are still very focused on growing our US market.”
