The sales of excavators, known as the "economic activity thermometer", continued to rise. In March, the national sales of 49,000 units hit a record high in a single month, and April sales of 45,000 units increased by 59.9% year-on-year. What information is reflected behind? Where are "excavators" used? Is the trend of rising volume and price sustainable? Kong Lingxin, Chief Analyst of Machinery Industry, Research Department of CICC, explained it to you in detail.
Traditional infrastructure is more obvious to construction machinery
Kong Lingxin said that the successive resumption of the project and the improvement in the growth rate of infrastructure investment have driven the sales of excavators. From the "excavator index" known as the "infrastructure barometer", the operating rate of excavators nationwide in April has reached 58.36%, 4 Monthly gold's "digging machine utilization index" increased by 34.3% year-on-year, hitting a new high in the past two years. These two data reflect that the construction volume of the project is already at a high level, and the operating rate may increase further in May and June.
Where are the "excavators" used? Kong Lingxin said that clues can be found from the growth rate of the infrastructure investment segment in April:
Railway infrastructure project: 34% increase from the previous month
Eco-environmental protection: 27% MoM growth
New infrastructure such as 5G base stations: a relatively small share of the total infrastructure
Therefore, since the beginning of this year, traditional infrastructure projects have made the pulling effect of construction machinery more obvious.
The price of small excavation has risen significantly, the large and medium excavator is relatively stable
Kong Lingxin said that the volume and price of small excavators used for farmland water conservancy and municipal engineering have increased significantly. The sales growth rate in April was 67.6%, higher than the 49% and 65.1% of large and medium-sized excavators, and the price of "small excavators" increased by 10 %, while the "large and medium digging machine" rose only 5%. As the sales season from March to May passes, the contradiction between supply and demand will be eased and prices will be relatively stable.
In the next two years, sales of concrete pump trucks and truck cranes may increase by 20%-30% year-on-year
Although the year-on-year growth rate of excavator sales has maintained double-digit growth since 2016 and reached as high as 99.5% in 2017, it is predicted that it will drop to 0%-10% in the next two years. Kong Lingxin said that the construction machinery industry has a cycle of about ten years, and excavators lasted a five-year downward cycle from 2011 to 2015. Therefore, he judges that the growth rate of excavator sales will decline in the next two years, but the growth rate of road cranes such as truck cranes, concrete pump trucks and concrete mixer trucks may be faster. Specifically, this year, sales of concrete pump trucks and truck cranes are expected The growth rate may reach 20%-30%.
Small tonnage excavator gross profit margin is low
Industry leading company Sany Heavy Industry's April excavator sales increased 63.3% year-on-year, accounting for over 20% of the domestic highest, but the company still said that the increase in gross profit margin could not be reflected in the first half. Kong Lingxin said that on the one hand, because industry profits fell by more than 20% in the first quarter, despite the improvement in the second quarter, the entire first half of the performance will be diluted in the first quarter. On the other hand, the increase in sales of small-tonnage excavators with low gross profit margins may bring down the overall gross profit margin of enterprises.
