According to the latest survey data of off highway research, the global sales of construction machinery and equipment increased by 10% in 2021, reaching a new record of 1.196 million units (slightly higher than the previous forecast of 1.13 million units). Demand is expected to decline by 5% in 2022.
Chris sleight, managing director of off highway research, said: "the combination of low interest rates, infrastructure investment incentives and high prices in 2021 is more favorable for the market. Real estate construction is booming, mining equipment demand is strong and infrastructure construction is stable."
In 2021, except China, major markets around the world experienced growth. North America had the strongest growth, with a year-on-year increase of 25%, followed by emerging markets (excluding India and China) with an increase of 24% and Western Europe with an increase of 22%.
Chris Sleight said that since the COVID-19, China's market has been showing different rhythms from other parts of the world. Since March 2020, China has taken rapid response measures and achieved remarkable results. In that year (2020), the sales volume of equipment increased by 30% year-on-year, reaching a scale not seen in a decade. The market began to decline in the second quarter of 2021. Although the range was a little large, the extremely high sales volume in the first quarter offset this trend to a certain extent. Therefore, the overall Chinese market decreased by 6% in 2021.
Off Highway Research believes that the outlook for 2022 is still optimistic and expects further growth in equipment sales in many countries, except China. "The global demand for construction machinery and equipment is much higher than the current supply demand, which is mainly affected by factors such as the extension of delivery time caused by supply chain (transportation bottleneck). Many manufacturers say that the product supply is in short supply, so we expect global equipment sales to remain at a high level in 2022," sleight added. "Although it is too early to talk about the impact of geopolitical and economic factors, there are still risk factors that may lead to the decline of the industry in the increasingly complex global environment."
