The construction machinery industry is still in the adjustment cycle. According to the statistics of 26 excavator manufacturing enterprises by China Construction Machinery Industry Association, 15600 excavators of all kinds were sold in January 2022, a year-on-year decrease of 20.4%.
At the same time, as an investment dependent and cyclical industry, construction machinery faces many uncertain factors such as rising raw material prices, tight supply chain and emission upgrading. For investors, it is difficult to control the direction of the industry.
However, the turning point and opportunity of the industry have emerged.
"I am optimistic about the trend of the industry in 2022". Xiang Wenbo, chairman of Sany Heavy Industry, who has just been performing his duties for one month, made a public voice a few days ago, not talking about his feelings of taking office, mainly to "cheer up" the construction machinery industry: the industry may fall in the first quarter and the first half of the year, but may rise in the second half of the year, with "low in the first half and high in the second half of the year". Xiang Wenbo also stressed that the construction machinery industry is far from the top.
Export sales continued to grow at a high level
From the monthly sales data, since April last year, the construction machinery industry has entered the adjustment period, walked out of the curve of "high before low", and finally maintained the slight increase of the whole year by relying on the "Changyang" and export outbreak in the first quarter.
According to the statistical data of China Construction Machinery Industry Association, from January to December 2021, the 25 host manufacturing enterprises included in the statistics sold 342800 sets of various mining machinery products, a year-on-year increase of 4.6%. Among them, the sales volume in the domestic market was 274400 units, a year-on-year decrease of 6.3%.
Although the construction machinery industry has entered the adjustment cycle, structural highlights still exist. For example, last year, the export sales volume of excavators was 68400, a year-on-year increase of 97%. At the beginning of this year, compared with domestic sales, exports still maintained a high growth trend. The sales data of excavators in January showed that domestic sales were 8282 units, a year-on-year decrease of 48.3%; 7325 units were exported, with a year-on-year increase of 105%.
Xiang Wenbo said, "construction machinery enterprises should hedge the impact of cyclical adjustment in the domestic market through internationalization."
In addition to internationalization, Xiang Wenbo believes that the other two means of enterprise confrontation cycle are to improve product competitiveness and promote intelligent manufacturing and digital transformation. The former improves market share, while the latter reduces costs and increases efficiency and improves competitiveness.
In fact, Xiang Wenbo has long predicted the trough of this cycle.
"The construction machinery industry has experienced five years of rapid growth from 2016 to 2021. The moderate decline in growth and even negative growth are expected, which is the characteristic of the industry." "We don't feel particularly stressed," Xiang Wenbo said
A number of people in the construction machinery industry told the securities times that due to the maturity of the industry, enterprises and market, the periodicity of construction machinery is weakening. The previous ups and downs will be difficult to reproduce, and more are small band mild adjustments.
Industry ushers in strategic opportunities
Although the construction machinery industry is still in the adjustment cycle, the "spring" has appeared.
The CCTV financial excavator index shows that the national engineering projects entered the closing stage in January. Although the workload of various construction machinery decreased year-on-year, the operating rate of construction machinery in many places remained high and the import and export trade was active.
In terms of workload, the frontal crane has increased for three consecutive months since November 2021, which are 116.46 (hours), 119.36 (hours) and 120.35 (hours) respectively; In terms of operating rate, the data of front crane, excavator, truck crane, crawler crane, mixer truck and pump truck are more than 50%. Among them, truck crane, front crane and pump truck ranked among the top three, with operating rates of 73.99%, 58.04% and 54.80% respectively.
It is noteworthy that the cumulative workload of various mechanical equipment in 2021 increased by 20.12% year-on-year, indicating that China continues to strengthen infrastructure construction.
Xiang Wenbo predicted that 2022 may be a better year for the construction machinery industry. "At the end of last year, the central economic work conference clearly put forward strategic measures to carry out infrastructure investment moderately in advance, which will be a great opportunity for the construction machinery industry."
According to the policy transmission cycle, Xiang Wenbo believes that the construction machinery industry will pick up in the second half of the year, with "first low and then high" in the whole year.
In addition to policy dividends, Xiang Wenbo believes that construction machinery is "far from the top", and there are at least four opportunities to significantly improve the industry space.
First, the international space is still very large; Second, China's aging will bring great demand for replacement of construction machinery; Third, the technology cycle, such as "double carbon", the traditional construction machinery based on fossil energy will be phased out; Fourth, in the future, the industry will be intelligent, less populated or even unmanned.
