Company profile
- Industry
- Heavy equipment manufacturing
- Founded
- 1925
- Headquarters
- Irving, United States
- Ownership
- Publicly traded
Profiles are auto-generated and infrequently updated.
The analyses
The Market-Entry Gambit · Growth & Portfolio
Caterpillar Got China Right by Forty Years and Still Mistimed It.
Caterpillar sold its first machines in China in 1975, then spent decades building. Yet by 2013, after a $580 million write-down on a fraudulent acquisition, China was only about 3% of its sales. The entry was sound. The timing wasn't.
8 min
The Moat Anatomy · Moat & Competition
Caterpillar's Moat Runs Through 156 Independent Dealers and $24 Billion in Services
Everyone thinks Caterpillar's edge is yellow iron. It isn't — the moat is a century-old network of ~156 independent dealers, and the genius is that $24 billion in services revenue now flows through them, growing whether or not anyone buys a new machine.
7 min