Last year, excavator sales reached a new high, and exports doubled

Reporter | Ma Yueran

Excavator 2021 sales data is out. Despite the year-on-year decline for many consecutive months, the total sales of 340,000 units still increased slightly compared with the previous year. Among them, the export volume doubled year-on-year.

According to the data released by the China Construction Machinery Industry Association on January 11, according to the statistics of 25 excavator manufacturing enterprises, 24,000 excavators of various types were sold in December 2021, down 23.8% year-on-year, which is "eight consecutive declines" during the year.

Among them, domestic sales of 15,400 units, down 43.5% year-on-year, for the year's "nine consecutive declines", but the decline has narrowed; exports of 8615 units, an increase of 105% year-on-year, up 34% month-on-month, hitting a peak for the whole year.

Based on the annual data, a total of 342,800 excavators were sold from January to December 2021, an increase of 15,200 units or 4.63% year-on-year. Among them, domestic sales were 274,400 units, down 6.32% year-on-year; exports were 68,400 units, an increase of 97% year-on-year.

According to the data statistics of huajing industry research institute for 2020, China's excavators have been exported to 188 countries or regions, mainly including Belgium, the United States, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and so on.

This is the fourth consecutive year that excavator sales have reached a new high.

Excavator sales in 2018 and 2019 were 203,000 units and 235,700 units, respectively, and increased to 327,600 units in 2020.

In 2021, excavator sales peaked in March, and excavator manufacturing enterprises counted by the association sold 79,000 excavators of various types, an increase of 60% year-on-year; sales in April were about 46,600 units, an increase of 2.52% year-on-year, a huge decline; and a continuous year-on-year decline began in May.

At the beginning of 2021, the construction machinery leader Sany Heavy Industry (600031.SH) had expected that the annual sales of excavators would reach a new high after 2020.

As of December 31, 2021, the annual sales of Sany excavator products exceeded the 100,000 mark. Sany Heavy Industry said that its domestic sales of excavators were nearly 78,000 units, with a market share of more than 30% for the first time; international sales exceeded 22,000 units, achieving double growth.

According to the data calculation of China Construction Machinery Industry Association, Sany Heavy Industry's annual domestic sales accounted for about 28.4%, and its export volume accounted for about 32.2%.

Construction machinery is one of the important industries in China's machinery industry, its product market demand is greatly affected by national infrastructure construction, downstream customers are mainly concentrated in infrastructure, real estate and other investment-intensive industries, and is closely related to the macroeconomic cycle.

Excavators are widely used in infrastructure construction such as water conservancy, power and roads, as well as real estate development, mining and other fields, and their sales volume is regarded as a weather vane and economic barometer of the construction machinery industry.

Last year, the excavator market as a whole was affected by the downward cycle of the industry, and the sales performance was not good.

CDB Securities pointed out that since 2021, the growth rate of infrastructure investment has been lower than market expectations, and the area of new housing starts has decreased year-on-year, which has had a greater negative impact on domestic construction machinery demand. It is expected that the growth rate of infrastructure investment will pick up in 2022, which will help drive the demand for construction machinery. In the short term, the construction machinery industry has been affected by weak domestic demand and rising costs, and profitability has declined.

According to the analysis of China Development Bank Securities, there is still a certain downward pressure on the Chinese economy in 2022, and the heavy responsibility of the bottom economy may fall on investment again, considering that some major projects in the current "14th Five-Year Plan" are gradually landing, and the issuance of special bonds in advance and accelerated in 2022, infrastructure investment will gradually increase.

According to the judgment of the macro group of China Development Bank Securities, it is expected that infrastructure investment will increase by about 6% in 2022, and the recovery of infrastructure investment growth rate will help drive domestic construction machinery demand; with the continuous improvement of the competitiveness of the domestic brand market and the increasingly perfect layout of overseas channels, the export market is expected to continue to grow at a high rate.

CICC expects that the sales volume of China's construction machinery industry will decline slightly year-on-year in 2022, mainly reflecting the decline in real estate fixed asset investment.

In the medium term, under the support of factors such as overseas market expansion, it is expected that the annual sales volume of China's excavators will stabilize at about 300,000 units in the next three years, and there will be no sharp decline; among them, leading companies are still expected to achieve long-term growth through domestic share increase and overseas market expansion.