TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Caterpillar Inc, the world's biggest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, on Thursday shot the lights out with its fourth-quarter earnings announcement, unveiling its biggest year-on-year revenue increase since 1947 – the year the Paris Peace Treaties were signed.

The company reported a 41% rise in sales to a record $60.1-billion, delivering a 78% hike in per-share profit for the year of $7.40 as it benefitted from burgeoning demand, with the company ending 2011 with an all-time-high order backlog.

And while commodity prices seem about as stable as a giraffe on ice skates, Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar is bullish on demand as the mining sector continues to climb, and the US construction industry stages a slight recovery.

“We’ve got to add more capacity, we’re going to be constrained this year,” CEO Doug Oberhelman said on a conference call.

“For some of those big trucks, we’re now quoting delivery times out to 2014.”

Demand for yellow metal equipment, as with almost everything else, took a hit in 2008 as mining companies went into hibernation while commodity prices froze.

But it is back to boom times for companies such as Caterpillar, as miners spend billions on increasing capacity to meet demand from developing countries such as China.

Earlier, CFO Ed Rapp said the company had increased its 2012 sales outlook tfrom $68-billion to $72-billion.

“We’re expecting 2012 to be the best year in our history, in terms of sales and profit,” he said.

The company spent billions of dollars in acquisitions and expansions in 2011, but said it was still “very tight” on many of its products.