Chinese EV trucks will build the cities of the future.Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
IF you think the world is starting to get used to surging sales of Chinese-made electric cars, the next wave of exports is going to be bigger, and more powerful.
That’s because the construction machinery giants that grew fat off the country’s property bubble are looking for new markets to offset the downturn at home.
Combined with looming electrification, the effects could be quite as dramatic as the other Made-in-China export booms which have so troubled trading partners.
Consider Sany Heavy Industry Co.
In 2020, 83% of its business was selling excavators, cranes, concrete mixers and the like to domestic developers. In the space of just four years, China’s property crash has caused its turnover in that market to shrink by two-thirds.
Overseas markets now account for more than 60% of revenue. It’s hoping to raise US$1.5bil via a Hong Kong initial public offering to help it double international sales to 100 billion yuan (US$14bil), the South China Morning Post reported.
Sany isn’t alone. Its local rivals XCMG Construction Machinery Co, Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science & Technology Co and Guangxi LiuGong Machinery Co are all facing the same collapse of activity on the home front, where housing starts in the first four months of 2025 fell to their lowest level since 2003.
That’s left dismal returns on all the assets they built to service a market that’s since disappeared – below 5%, less than half what Caterpillar Inc manages and well below the 7.7% at Komatsu Ltd.
The best way out is to find export markets to get the production lines for all those diggers, dozers, lifters and trucks humming again. Zoomlion’s international sales have followed Sany’s in becoming the largest element of its revenue. XCMG and LiuGong aren’t far behind. — Bloomberg
David Fickling is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
