The report was issued twice in a row, and Xinhua News Agency deeply observed the "new curve" of Sany!

On January 24, Xinhua Daily Telegraph and Xinhua News Agency published two articles, "A New Curve Across the Cycle - Behind the Rise of a Company's Sales Against the Trend" and "Advanced Manufacturing from Factories, Industrial Chains and Products", showing Sany's development vitality from multiple perspectives in terms of emerging business development, overseas sales growth, and digital and intelligent innovation.

The following is an excerpt from the report:

A new curve across cycles

Behind the rise in sales of a company

This is a company's sales curve: the first peak appeared in 2011 when it reached 75 billion yuan, then it fell for five consecutive years, falling to the bottom of 30 billion yuan in 2016, and then the curve rose all the way to the second peak of 172 billion yuan in 2021 and 139.5 billion yuan in 2022.

Recently, the reporter saw such a schematic chart of sales from 2009 to 2022 at the headquarters of Sany Group in Changsha, Hunan.

"Will sales continue to decline in 2023?" The reporter asked Tang Xiuguo, the rotating chairman of Sany Group.

"No, it won't." Tang Xiuguo replied that the performance in 2023 will stop falling and stabilize compared with 2022, and from the current data, sales will increase slightly compared with 2022.

This is located in Changsha, HunanSany heavy truckProduction line (photo taken on July 3, 2023). Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Bai Tiantian

The construction machinery industry, known as the "barometer" of the economy, has a strong cyclical nature. In recent years, this industry has faced great downward pressure, including Sany Group, and the same is true for construction machinery companies.

China is in a critical period of economic recovery, transformation and upgrading, facing challenges such as insufficient domestic effective demand and overcapacity in some industries. In 2023, the country's fixed asset investment will increase by 3% year-on-year, of which infrastructure investment will increase by 5.9% and real estate development investment will decrease by 9.6%.

In Tang Xiuguo's view, an important reason for the upward trend is that the business structure of Sany Group has undergone major changes: when sales peak in 2021, more than eighty percent of its sales came from its core enterprise, Sany Heavy Industry, which is mainly engaged in construction machinery. However, since 2022, Sany Group's coal machinery, port machinery, wind power equipment, emergency equipment, heavy trucks and other businesses have continued to grow, and new electrified and intelligent products have been selling well in the market.

For Sany Group, this is the "second growth curve" through the cycle, and these new businesses are also highly in line with China's requirements for promoting high-quality development and building new growth engines such as new energy, high-end equipment, and green environmental protection.

In addition to developing emerging businesses in the domestic market, the growth curve of Sany Group's overseas sales has risen rapidly, which has played a good supporting role in the overall performance.

"Sany has put its globalization strategy in a more important position, and now overseas revenue accounts for one-third, creating 60% to 70% of profits." Tang Xiuguo said that in particular, sales to countries jointly building the "Belt and Road" will exceed 20 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2023, accounting for more than half of overseas sales.

Why are China's construction machinery products popular to build the "Belt and Road" countries?

"In recent years, China has built many of the world's most challenging projects, which in turn have led to the research and development of China's equipment technology." Tang Xiuguo said that as a result, Chinese products and technologies have strong applicability; At the same time, Chinese products meet the needs of the economic and social development of the countries that jointly build the "Belt and Road", especially in infrastructure construction, energy exploitation, housing construction and other aspects. In addition, Chinese equipment manufacturing enterprises have formed close relationships with domestic infrastructure enterprises and overseas partners to jointly provide cost-effective products and high-quality services.

At the Sany Group plant in Changsha, Hunan Province, Sany electrified loaders demonstrate unmanned operation (taken on March 31, 2023). Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Bai Tiantian

In 2023, not only Sany, but also the proportion of overseas revenue of many Chinese construction machinery companies is increasing.

"The joint construction of the 'Belt and Road' has opened up a new space for China's manufacturing industry, which is conducive to China's progress from a manufacturing country to a manufacturing power." Chen Jianwei, a professor at the National Institute of Opening up at the University of International Business and Economics, said.

Xu Zhaoyuan, deputy director of the Industrial Economic Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said that different industries are in different economic cycles, and the corresponding demand for various types of equipment manufacturing has obvious ups and downs, such as with the decline in investment, the demand for construction machinery products will be weaker, but at the same time, some other high-speed development industries will have a strong demand for the corresponding equipment manufacturing. From the perspective of the stable development of large enterprises, the cross-cycle business layout is more conducive to long-term stable development.

From the factory, industrial chain, products to see advanced manufacturing

Front-line observation of the economy at the beginning of 2024

Innovation is the fundamental driving force of new industrialization. The Central Economic Work Conference held at the end of 2023 pointed out that the construction of a modern industrial system should be led by scientific and technological innovation.

At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, Xinhua News Agency reporters visited construction machinery, new energy vehicles, electronic information and other enterprises to observe how innovation changes factories, industrial chains and products, and explore new trends in advanced manufacturing.

On December 1, 2023, the real-time operation of 158,000 construction machinery and equipment was displayed on the screen of the "Sany Group C-end Customer Equipment Big Data Management Platform". The platform has accumulated data access to more than 900,000 devices. The reporter saw that at 12:27 on the same day, the yellow light was lit up on the map of Jilin Songyuan, and it was a local excavator customer who sent a maintenance request; At 12:28, engineer Jiang Zixin took the order; At 13:10, troubleshooting, the customer's equipment resumed operation.

This is an excavator photographed at the "Sany Science and Technology Festival" in Changsha on March 31, 2023. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Bai Tiantian

"Every Sany device is equipped with a controller, allowing thousands of construction machinery to enter the era of big data." Tang Xiuguo, the rotating chairman of Sany Group, said that the data generated in the use of equipment can be used to guide enterprise service improvement, R&D innovation and business development, and the massive data has also formed a well-known Sany "excavator index" in the industry.

Experts believe that making full use of digital and intelligent technology and extending to high value-added R&D and services is one of the important directions for the upgrading of the manufacturing industry.

"In the past, when communications, transportation and other technologies were underdeveloped, enterprises could not provide many products and services, and could only focus on manufacturing, but the current high development of digital technology and globalization has created better conditions for manufacturing enterprises to upgrade to the design end and sales end." Xu Zhaoyuan said.

The wave of digital intelligence led by science and technology innovation has given birth to a huge after-market system. A number of analysts said that China's manufacturing is experiencing the development from "buying and leaving, money and goods" to "worry-free after-sales and value-added products".

The pace of China's manufacturing industry "getting stronger" is moving forward firmly. According to the deployment of the Central Economic Work Conference, relevant departments and industries are promoting the integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation, improving the level of the industrial chain, and striving to build a modern industrial system with advanced manufacturing as the backbone.

Source: Xinhua News Agency