Imports of domestic machine tools surged

The term “renew high” has been used in recent years to describe the surge in imports of machine tool products from China. This does not, in the China Machine Tool Industry Association in 2011 released in the first half of the market operation analysis of the machine tool industry, said that from January to June the rapid growth of China's imports of machine tool products, a year-on-year increase of 46.4%, and a new record high over the same period.

The growth rate of imports is higher than the growth rate of the industry. According to statistics, in the import data, the import value of metal processing machine tools was 6.14 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for more than half of the import amount, an increase of 57.8% year-on-year. Among them, the import value of CNC machine tools was US$5.11 billion, an increase of 56.5% year-on-year.

It is worth noting that the average price of imported metal processing machines increased by 33.7% year-on-year. According to analysts from the Marketing Department of the Association, the main reasons are: the relatively high proportion of machine tools in the import of metal processing machines, such as horizontal lathes, other grinders, tool grinders, ultrasonic processing machine tools, punch presses, forging or stamping machine tools, etc. A higher rate. From January to June, the machine tool industry accumulated a total industrial output value of 300.02 billion yuan, an increase of 36.4% year-on-year. Although this data is also very gratifying, there is a problem that we have to look directly at. The machine tool industry in China is following 2010. After the rapid growth, it still maintained a relatively high speed of growth, but its momentum has gradually slowed down and began to show a slow decline. From the trend point of view, the machine tool market in the second half is not optimistic.

Especially in the latter part of the second quarter, the machine tool industry suddenly experienced a decline in orders, which can be said to be a clear signal for the machine tool market that has been showing rapid development. The reporter learned that starting from July, the situation of enterprises undertaking new orders has declined in different degrees compared to the first half of the year, and some have fallen to less than half of April. At this time, imported machine tools still maintained rapid growth, and their growth rate was much higher than the growth rate of domestic industrial value of the machine tool industry. In the past few years, many key enterprises in China have been aiming at replacing imported products when formulating related product strategies. However, it seems that the adjustment of the product structure of China's machine tool industry is not ideal. Of course, this is not to say that we must completely curb imports, but it is worth pondering that the import growth rate is higher than the industry growth rate.

Imports of metal processing machine tools increased by 57.8% year-on-year, and gold-cutting machine tools increased by 58.3% year-on-year. These two data reflected that the demand structure of China's machine tool market is constantly changing, and the demand for high-end and high-end products has increased significantly. It also reflects that domestic high-end and mid- to high-end products have both technical defects and industrialization.

As early as 3 to 5 years ago, the veteran of the machine tool industry was very valuable. When interviewed by reporters, he said that it is correct to target alternative imports, but different companies must have different positioning. They should not aim at high-precision pyramids. The market demand, more companies should put the target in the pyramid point market, this type of market needs is a universal machine.

From the importation point of view, in the first half of the year, the number of CNC lathes imported from Taiwan, China, ranked first in terms of import volume, reaching 1,487 units, an increase of 29.5% year-on-year; the second-largest amount was calculated by amount, reaching a total of US$100 million. The year-on-year increase was 45.5%, accounting for 25.4% of the total imported CNC lathes on the mainland. Its average unit price is only 69,000 U.S. dollars, which is about one-half of the average unit price of imported CNC lathes (125,000 U.S. dollars).

In addition, China's imports of machine tools from Japan increased by as much as 83.3%, ranking first in China's imports of metal processing machine tools, accounting for 41.0% of China's total imports of metal processing machine tools.

In the new round of negotiations on the ECFA (Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement), if the current status of the machine tool industry is not taken into account, the industrialization process of the mainland's mid-range CNC machine tools, which was originally difficult to develop, will further slow down. The high-end CNC machine tools are lacking in mid-range CNC. With the basic support of machine tools, the process of industrialization is more difficult and industrial safety is threatened. “We don’t just stand to pick peaches and jump, and the peaches above are bigger and redder.” “We are very good at the machine tool market in the past few years. Too lazy to jump. But the result of not exercising for a long time is that when you need to jump, you may already have stiff legs and you can't do what you want. After the development in recent years, Yen valuable believes that many machine tool companies already have the ability to do a good job of universal machine tools. "It is entirely possible to achieve this level as long as you have the heart and mind."

In the analysis report, the Machine Tool Association also stated that the fight for import substitution, especially for the replacement of mid-range CNC machine tools, is obviously a matter of urgency and that some companies in the industry are able to achieve this within a certain period of time.

The profit growth is not optimistic. In the article “Difficulties in Increasing Production and Revealing Trade Secrets in the Zhongpai”, the reporter once briefly described the meager profits of listed machine tools.

According to the analysis by the China Machine Tool Industry Association in the first half of the year, the output of gold-cutting machine tools in the first half of the year increased by 23.7% year-on-year (including 40% year-on-year increase in the output of numerically-controlled machine tools). The year-on-year growth rate of output value reached 30.4%, and the product structure seems to be in a good direction. development of.

Assuming that the growth rate of output value is greater than the output growth rate by 6.7 percentage points, and the rate of production of the NC increases substantially, the average unit price of the product has only increased from RMB 169,200/unit in the first half of last year to RMB 169,500/unit in the same period of this year. The year-on-year increase was less than 0.2%.

This reflects that the growth in the output of CNC machine tools is mainly based on economical CNC machine tools, while the production of medium and high-end CNC machine tools and large and heavy machine tools has been reduced.

It is known in the industry that due to the low degree of innovation in China's high-end products and the generally low level of industrialization, profit levels are not high; while low-grade machine tools (including economical CNC machine tools) have lower depreciation due to fixed assets, and the technology is mature. Larger, high production efficiency, and relatively objective profits, but this is not the direction of the development of the machine tool industry, accelerating the industrialization of high-grade gold-cutting machine tools, expanding the market share of medium and high-grade gold-cutting machine tools, is to obtain greater business The fundamental guarantee of profit.

In contrast, changes in the product structure of the forming machine are more reasonable. First, the growth rate of its output value is much higher than the output growth rate. Among them, the average unit price of products has increased from 136,400 yuan per unit in the same period of last year to 216,000 yuan per year this year, and the growth rate has reached 60.3 percent. The sharp rise in the price of a single unit reflects the great changes in the product structure of the forming machine tools and has also yielded considerable profits.

According to the statistics of the association, the profits of China's forming machine tools increased by more than 50% from January to May, and the growth rate of output was 7% year-on-year (including the growth of CNC machine tools by 24.65%). The growth rate of output value reached 40.1%.

Another outstanding phenomenon in the first half of this year was that orders for heavy-duty and large-scale machine tools fell significantly. The reporter learned that in the past, Kunming Machine Tools and Qiqihar Machine Tool Co., Ltd., which once made the industry peers jealous, did not have satisfactory revenue in the first half of the year. According to report, the operating income of Qiqihar No. 2 Machine Tool in the first half of the year was only flat with the same period of last year. Some companies stated that some orders that have already been completed have already appeared that users are not in a hurry to pick up the goods, and even expressly demand delays in delivery.

It can be foreseen that due to the large number of imported machine tools entering the domestic market, it will have a greater impact on China's development of the CNC machine tool industry. In particular, the import unit prices of some large and heavy-duty machine tools, such as gantry milling, gantry machining centers, milling and boring machines, vertical lathes, and numerical control gear processing machine tools, have decreased, which has caused more severe competition in the market of large-scale and heavy machine tools where market demand has begun to decline.

For the market expectation in the second half of the year, a common view is that as the growth of the major service areas of the machine tool industry, such as autos, slows down, the result will be to slow down the next investment and progress, which will inevitably affect its demand for machine tools.

In addition, because the country has strictly controlled the scale of credit, it is inevitable that some companies will have obvious tight liquidity.

This situation is rather like the feeling in the second half of 2008 and the beginning of 2009. That time, Mr. Lang worked for the Chinese manufacturing industry, said the sentence: currently only autumn, winter yet to come true.

It was only then that the Chinese machine tool manufacturing industry immediately entered hot summer directly from fall. Companies that did not prepare for cold clothing were still fortunate. However, the reporter believes that history cannot be completely duplicated. At present, the U.S. economic growth is once again in crisis. The winter of manufacturing in China may not have arrived yet, but the next step will be the gradual rise of the autumn wind and an increase in coolness.