Jungheinrich: Company Overview, Warehouse Automation & Material Handling Solutions

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Jungheinrich is one of the world’s major material handling and intralogistics companies, with a business spanning lift trucks, warehouse equipment, automation, mobile robotics, software, fleet management and service. This hub brings together background on the company with Forklift Revolution coverage of its equipment, technology and customer projects.

Jungheinrich electric forklifts

About Jungheinrich

Founded in 1953 and headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, Jungheinrich AG has grown from a lift-truck manufacturer into one of the world’s major intralogistics providers. Its business now stretches from electric forklifts and warehouse trucks to automated storage systems, mobile robots, warehouse software, fleet management and lifecycle service.

Jungheinrich reported revenue of approximately €5.5 billion in 2025 and employs more than 21,000 people worldwide. The company has direct sales operations in more than 40 countries, with a broader international presence extending well beyond those markets.

The traditional lift-truck business remains central to Jungheinrich, but automation has become increasingly important. The company now reports through two operating segments, Industrial Trucks & Services and Automation & Warehouse Equipment, reflecting the increasingly close relationship between conventional material handling equipment and automated warehouse systems.

Forklifts and Warehouse Equipment

Jungheinrich has particularly deep roots in electric warehouse equipment. Its portfolio covers electric counterbalance forklifts, reach trucks, pallet trucks, stackers, order pickers and specialized trucks for high-density storage applications.

Reach trucks are an important part of that history. Company founder Friedrich Jungheinrich introduced the Ameise Retrak to Europe in 1956. Seventy years later, Jungheinrich says operational data from around 30,000 reach trucks is helping inform development of its latest equipment, including the ETV 4i generation.

The company’s equipment portfolio includes:

Electric counterbalance forklifts
Reach trucks and powered pallet trucks
Stackers and order pickers
Very Narrow Aisle (VNA) turret trucks
High-bay and specialized warehouse vehicles

Very Narrow Aisle and High-Density Storage

Very Narrow Aisle applications are one of the areas where Jungheinrich’s lift-truck and automation businesses come together particularly clearly. VNA trucks allow warehouses to reduce aisle width and make greater use of building height, increasing pallet positions within a given footprint. Guidance and automation can take the concept further by reducing the amount of manual steering and positioning required from the operator.

Jungheinrich supplies both manually operated and automated equipment for these applications, along with the racking, controls and software required for larger integrated systems.

See our guide to automated Very Narrow Aisle warehouses.

Warehouse Automation and Mobile Robotics

Jungheinrich’s automation business now reaches considerably beyond automated forklifts. Its portfolio includes automated storage and retrieval systems, mobile robots, automated guided vehicles, conveyor and pallet-handling systems, warehouse software and the controls needed to connect equipment into a larger material-flow system.

That makes Jungheinrich interesting from an operator’s perspective because a project may involve conventional forklifts, automated trucks and fixed automation working within the same facility rather than a simple choice between manual and automated handling.

Recent projects illustrate that range. At Hiller Logistik in Lüneburg, Germany, Jungheinrich automated a VNA warehouse using four EKX 516a mobile robots operating across ten aisles reaching 12.9 metres high. At Ritter Sport, the company combined semi-automated forklift technology with automated guided vehicles. Other projects have involved fully automated warehouse systems and internal pallet movement.

Fleet Management, Rental and Service

For large fleets, the conversation increasingly extends beyond the truck itself. Utilization, maintenance, rental capacity, energy use and visibility across multiple locations can have as much operational impact as equipment specifications.

A good example came in September 2026, when Jungheinrich and Kuehne+Nagel signed an international framework agreement covering around 5,000 industrial trucks across several European countries. The agreement combines truck provision, rental and service with centralized digital fleet management.

Jungheinrich developed a Kuehne+Nagel-specific version of its Rental Fleet Management platform, KN-RFM+, which combines a core fleet with rental equipment that can be scaled as demand changes. The model is intended to provide better utilization and more consistent fleet visibility across sites and national borders.

Read the full story: Jungheinrich and Kuehne+Nagel Sign Framework Agreement Covering 5,000 Industrial Trucks

Battery Technology and Electrification

Electric material handling is hardly new to Jungheinrich. The company says more than one million of its electric vehicles are in operation, while lithium-ion technology has become an important part of its equipment and energy strategy.

Jungheinrich is also looking beyond lithium-ion. In 2026, the company began field trials of sodium-ion batteries in industrial trucks at selected customer locations. Sodium-ion technology is still emerging in material handling, but its use of more widely available raw materials makes it an interesting technology to watch as manufacturers explore alternatives for future electric fleets.

AntOn Extends Jungheinrich Into the Entry-Level Market

Jungheinrich has traditionally been associated with premium warehouse equipment and engineered intralogistics systems, but the company has also widened its reach at the other end of the market. AntOn by Jungheinrich was introduced as a separate brand aimed at customers looking for simpler, more cost-conscious material handling equipment.

The move gives Jungheinrich a way to address an increasingly competitive entry-level segment without repositioning its established product range. It is also another indication of how competition in the global forklift market is changing as manufacturers broaden their portfolios and price points.

Jungheinrich News and Projects

Forklift Revolution follows Jungheinrich product developments, automation projects, fleet agreements and battery technology. Recent coverage includes:

Why We Follow Jungheinrich

Jungheinrich is useful to watch because several of the biggest changes in material handling intersect within the company. Conventional lift trucks remain a major part of the business, but they increasingly sit alongside lithium-ion power, mobile robots, automated storage, warehouse software and digital fleet management.

That combination provides a window into how forklift operations are changing. In some warehouses, the next productivity gain may come from a better reach truck or a denser VNA layout. Elsewhere it may involve automating repetitive pallet moves, integrating mobile robots with conventional equipment or using fleet data to determine how many trucks are actually required.

For Forklift Revolution, those developments make Jungheinrich worth following not simply as a forklift manufacturer, but as one of the companies helping define where lift trucks fit within the increasingly automated warehouse.

Company website: Jungheinrich AG