Chinese construction equipment maker Zoomlion has begun work on an excavator factory capable of producing machinery worth about $2.8bn a year.
Work began on Saturday, 31 August, on a 100ha site in Changsha, capital of central China’s Hunan Province. When complete, the factory is expected to produce 33,000 excavators a year.
The Xinhua agency reports that Zoomlion will use artificial intelligence and the internet of things to increase the factory’s efficiency. Fu Ling, vice president of Zoomlion, told the agency that the factory would comply with international standard, and would enable the company to increase its share of the booming domestic market.
China’s construction machinery industry sold a total of 137,000 excavators between January and June, up 14% year on year. That followed a 45% surge sales by China’s 25 leading excavator makers in 2018.
The site is slightly larger than the one opened near Shanghai by rival Sany in 2012, billed at the time as the largest in the world. That facility, at Lingang Industrial Park, was able to manage the construction process from raw steel plate to finished machine.
Sany’s turnover grew 46% to $8bn in 2018, making it the sixth largest equipment maker in the world. It said in April of this year that its profit for that period would probably increase by between 100% and 120% on the $913m it made in 2018.
XCMG Construction Machinery also said its first-quarter profit would grow 120%, in its case reaching $150m, and Zoomlion forecast a surge of up to 180%.
Image: Zoomlion’s ZE210E excavator (Zoomlion)
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