Import and export of machine tools deficit increases the market opportunities for mid-range machine tools

Recently, the China Machine Tool Industry Association released data show that last year, China's total imports of machine tool products 20.29 billion US dollars, an increase of 29.3%; exports of 890 million US dollars, an increase of 26.4%. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, China's machine tool industry last year accumulated a total industrial output value of 660.65 billion yuan, an increase of 32.1%; product sales value of 642.49 billion yuan, an increase of 31.1%; product sales rate reached 97.3%, compared with the same period last year Decrease by 0.8%.

In 2011, China's machine tool industry continued its rapid growth in 2010. From the aspect of import and export value, it reflected the acceleration of market demand structure upgrade. The demand for mid- to high-end machine tool products increased significantly. This is also a new opportunity for Chinese machine tool companies to break through.

Import and export deficit increased

According to the data released by the China Machine Tool Industry Association, in 2011, the cumulative import of machine tool products was US$ 20.29 billion, a year-on-year increase of 29.3%. Metal processing machine tools imported 13.24 billion US dollars, an increase of 40.6%. Exports of machine tool products totaled US$8.90 billion, a year-on-year increase of 26.4%; of which exports of metal processing machines reached US$2.42 billion, an increase of 30.3% year-on-year. In 2011, the trade deficit of China's machine tool industry was as high as $11.39 billion.

It is reported that in terms of machine tool imports, the growth rate of China's import of machine tool products has remained at a high rate in 2011, with a year-on-year increase of 29.3%. Monthly import volume is still at a high level, but the monthly growth rate has gradually slowed down.

Among the imported products, the gold-cutting machine tool is the absolute main force in all types of imported machine tools, reaching US$10.54 billion, an increase of 40.0% over the same period (including CNC machine tools of US$11.11 billion, an increase of 42.1% year-on-year.) The fourth place is Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Germany, accounting for 79.5% of the total imports. Imports of forming machine tools reached US$2.7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 42.7%, a rapid increase, and the import value has surpassed that of numerical control devices, jumping to second place.

It is worth noting that due to the implementation of the ECFA, the growth of Taiwan's machine tool trade with the mainland has been accelerated. Among the mainland's imports of CNC lathes, Taiwan ranks first in terms of volume and second in terms of amount, which represents a year-on-year increase of 29.7%, accounting for 21.7% of the total number of imported CNC lathes on the mainland.

Due to the high import pressure, the domestic machine tool market share in 2011 was 66.1%, which was 0.8% lower than the previous year. This is reflected in the fact that the growth rate of machine tool exports is higher than that of imports in the field of foreign trade, and the market competitiveness of medium and high-end machine tools in China has not improved.

In 2011, China's machine tool industry continued its rapid growth in 2010, but the growth rate has shown a slow decline since the second half of the year. In the year, the machine tool industry showed a tendency of running high, opening higher, and slowing down.

According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to December 2011, the total value of industrial machine tools was 660.65 billion yuan, an increase of 32.1% year-on-year; the product sales value was 642.49 billion yuan, an increase of 31.1% year-on-year; the product sales rate was 97.3%. Compared with the same period of last year, it decreased 0.8 percentage points. Among them, the machine tool industry realized a profit of 44.58 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth rate of 28.0%; the output value margin was 6.7%, which was a decrease of 0.3 percentage points from the same period of last year.

In the future, under the premise that the size of China's machine tool market will continue to expand, the market demand structure will accelerate, and imports will hit a record high, while domestic demand for low-end products will be significantly reduced. Whether the domestic machine tool manufacturers can speed up the pace of product structure adjustment and quickly meet the needs of users is an important factor in determining whether domestic machine tools can increase market share.

Mid-market opportunities

In 2011, the import growth of metal processing machine tools was as high as 40.6%, which was 11.2 percentage points higher than the growth rate of the output value of similar machine tools in China. Imports from Germany and Japan accounted for two-thirds of the total, pushing up the average unit price of metal processing machine tool imports by 33.2% year-on-year. Reflecting the acceleration of structural upgrades in market demand, users’ demand for medium and high-end products has increased significantly. It also reflects that domestic high-end products cannot meet this change in many aspects such as technological level, industrialization, ability to adapt to the market, and overall services.

At present, China's machine tool industry has a considerable scale, a large number of scientific and technological progress in the machine tool industry has entered the application field, and the manufacturing level of individual products is even close to the international advanced level. A group of medium-to-high-end machine tool tools also serve in key areas such as automobiles, aerospace, shipping, and energy, and also provide complete sets of equipment for foreign high-end users. For example, Jinan No.2 Machine Tool Co., Ltd. won the bid in the United States Ford Company's press line production line and will provide two of the world's most advanced press lines with a total value of up to 1 billion yuan.

However, the large number of imports shows that the structure of China's machine tool products still cannot meet the demand of the domestic market for high-end products. Among imported products, China has imported a lot of machine tool parts, cutting tools, etc., indicating that the phenomenon of bottlenecks in China's functional components has not yet been significantly changed.

Experts in the industry stated that a large part of China's imported machine tools belongs to mid-range machine tool products, and the demand for mid-range machine tool products has increased significantly, reflecting the defects in the technical level and industrialization of domestic medium-to-high end products.

In recent years, TRUMPF, DMG, and other foreign companies have accelerated the mid-range machine tool product offensive in China. In the future, the international giants will quickly occupy the Chinese machine tool market with high-tech-driven low-price mid-range machine tool products assembled with high technology, posing a severe challenge to Chinese domestic machine tool companies. In the future, during the transformation and upgrading of the industry, it will be the best choice for the Chinese machine tool industry to focus on the mid-end machine tool market, and then advance into the high-end market.