Significant contrast between the winter performance of construction machinery

A few days ago, Caterpillar, the world’s largest mining and construction machinery manufacturer, said that its third quarter profit was US$1.7 billion, an increase of 49% year-on-year, and earnings per share increased to US$2.54, higher than market expectations. Caterpillar expects its 2012 full-year revenue to reach $66 billion. As a direct competitor for Caterpillar worldwide, Komatsu Japan’s sales increased by 16.6% year-on-year in March, and operating profit increased by 36.8% year-on-year, while the net profit from April to June reached 310,000 million yen (about 411 million U.S. dollars).

Obviously, the contrast between performance and anticipation to resist the industry's "winter" weapon compared with the performance of Caterpillar, Komatsu and other well-known foreign machinery manufacturers, such as beautiful, in the first half of 2012, the overall revenue of domestic construction machinery manufacturing enterprises is not optimistic, in the 31st Of the 8 listed major domestic construction machinery companies, including Heavy Industry, Zoomlion, Liugong and Shantui, only Zoomlion and Sany Heavy Industry achieved positive revenue growth year-on-year. Among them, Zoomlion’s revenue growth was the fastest at 20.59% year-on-year, while revenue growth was negative for six companies including Liugong, Shantui, Xiagong, Shanhe Intelligence, Anhui Heli, and Xugong Machinery.

In the first half of 2012, China’s economic growth continued its declining momentum since last year, the growth rate of fixed asset investment continued to fall, and the status of credit funds remained tight. Domestic construction machinery manufacturers faced unprecedented difficulties. Even so, under the general trend of global economic recession, Caterpillar and Komatsu's impressive performance has allowed the industry and the public to see a huge gap between domestic and foreign construction machinery manufacturing companies in market operation capabilities and risk resilience. The Chinese saying “No Tongli” was reconfirmed in this cold winter “industry” and gave an important inspiration to the domestic construction machinery industry that has been shouting “cold” in the same global financial crisis.

Analyze the reasons for maintaining performance growth in the face of adversity, Edward Lapper, president and chief financial officer of the Caterpillar Group, said: Caterpillar’s ​​growth in performance has benefited from two points, one is to make proactive plans and strategic plans in advance, and more Faster and better respond to changes and take effective actions at any time. Second, actively participate in local competitions, invest and build factories at customers' locations, meet customers' needs at close range, and provide the products and technologies they need.

In fact, taking a look at several major domestic and foreign outstanding construction machinery manufacturing enterprises that have broken through the trend in 2012, we can see that taking precautions has become a common feature of their standing in the cold winter of the industry. Take Zoomlion, the leading domestic construction machinery manufacturing industry, whose revenue growth has been the fastest in the first half of 2012 as an example.

As early as in 2008, China Unicom took advantage of the favorable opportunity of the international financial crisis to successfully acquire CIFA Italy, the world’s third-largest concrete machinery manufacturer. After four years of successful integration, CIFA became not only the first European company to emerge from the financial crisis, but also became a medium-sized company. Jointly marched to the bridgehead in Europe, and Zhonglian also optimized the structure of concrete machinery products through this acquisition, resulting in a significant increase in the proportion of long boom trucks. On the basis of the integration and reinvention of CIFA's lightweight design technology, China United has successively Developed a large number of world-class products such as 80-meter and 101-concrete carbon fiber jib pump trucks, thereby firmly occupying the technical commanding heights of the industry, increasing the added value and profitability of products, and at the same time, with several other overseas Compared with M&A construction machinery manufacturing companies, due to the earlier completion of overseas mergers and acquisitions, Zoomlion’s cash used to withstand risks will be much more abundant, which will to a certain extent establish the trend of China Unicom’s growth in 2012. basis.

At the same time, as early as in the first few years of the financial crisis, Zoomlion realized that the crisis will have an impact on the industry. To this end, Zoomlion began multi-channel financing to enhance cash flow and reduce financial risks, and in December 2010, Listed on the H-share market, the total capital raised was approximately HK$15 billion and became the first listed company in the domestic construction machinery industry to achieve domestic and foreign listings, issue US debt, and achieve multi-channel financing. This has provided sufficient funds to withstand severe winters in the industry. Protection. In addition, Zoomlion also strictly controls personnel expenditures, strengthens internal management, and enhances operational efficiency. According to the 2012 interim report, Zoomlion Zoomlion’s 31,000 employees created a net profit of RMB 5.622 billion in the first half of 2012, per capita Profit reached 180,000.

Looking at the global market, the hope of the transition of borderless industries into a wintry economy In recent years, with the globalization of the economy and the continuous deepening of the market structure, we have focused on the world market, reshaped the business system, and strengthened the concept of globalization of enterprises and implemented the concept of borderless Industrial transfer has become the consensus of the world's top engineering machinery manufacturers. In Caterpillar, for example, in 2011, Caterpillar announced a $150 million investment in a new state-of-the-art engine manufacturing plant in India.

This coincides with Zoomlion’s localization strategy. Zhan Chunxin, chairman of Zoomlion, emphasized that “internationalization of Chinese companies is to be localized and adhere to the three principles of responsibility, sharing, and tolerance.” Dance in the world ". For this reason, Zoomlion has actively promoted its localization strategy in the internationalization of recent years. On August 21st, Zoomlion and ELECTROMECH of India formally signed an agreement to establish a joint venture in India. This facility is the first overseas direct investment project of Zoomlion and is the first overseas production of Zoomlion’s offshore crane. base.

Huang Chung, General Manager of Zoomlion Construction Cranes, told reporters at the signing ceremony that the cooperation between Zoomlion and EM will enable the two sides to effectively integrate their local advantages and technological and management advantages. In this regard, Huang Qun believes that the two parties will be closer to the needs of local Indian customers after establishing a joint venture company. With the reduction of shipping costs and the shortened lead time, the company will have more obvious price/performance advantages.

The view of Huang Qun’s words and Edward Lepp’s active participation in the local competition coincide with each other. Except for India, almost all of the world’s leading manufacturers of construction machinery and machinery have established production lines or assembly plants in Brazil, such as Caterpillar. Le, Komatsu, etc., and to radiate throughout South America.

From this, we can see that market-oriented, localized features, global resource integration and optimal allocation, and the construction of a complete global industrial chain is not only a tool for construction machinery manufacturers to resist risks, but also To ensure its long-lasting "magic weapon", in terms of Caterpillar's development in the first half of this year, the growth in sales of construction machinery in the US market and rising demand for mining machinery in the global market not only made its performance in the first half of 2012 still outstanding, but also offset the Its sales in Europe, China and Brazil declined.

In the current world of domestic market internationalization and international market integration, how Chinese construction machinery companies think about embedding themselves in the large chessboard of the international market and actively learn and draw on the management experience of the same industry. After some baptisms, some construction machinery manufacturing companies are also switching ideas and re-aggregating energy. I believe in the near future, Chinese construction machinery manufacturing companies will soon come out of the doldrums.