Electrical Equipment / Components & Telecoms

From January to August this year, the entire industry sold 755,700 forklifts, a year-on-year increase of 58.4%. Among them, the domestic market sold 557,200 units, a year-on-year increase of nearly 51%, and exports of 198,500 units, a year-on-year increase of 84%.

It is reported that smart manufacturing and smart logistics broaden the application scenarios of forklifts, bringing huge market demand. Observing the sales of key companies in the forklift industry such as Nuoli, Anhui Heli, and Hangcha Group, manufacturing companies and warehousing and logistics companies are becoming major customers of forklift products.

"The accelerated development of smart manufacturing has driven the construction of smart factories and the rapid growth of the smart logistics industry has brought new growth space for the forklift industry." A related person from Nuoli shares said that in the era of smart manufacturing, there are many machines in the factory workshops and warehouses. The scenario of mutual coordination and overall scheduling will be more common, among which forklifts responsible for material handling are indispensable.

The electric forklift is responsible for moving the raw materials from the truck to the warehousing port, the stacker picks up the forks of the raw materials into the warehouse, and the shuttle truck then delivers the raw materials to their respective cargo spaces. In the whole operation process, forklifts such as electric forklifts and stackers cooperate with each other to reduce the use of personnel as much as possible.

The opportunity is here. Traditional forklifts rely on manual operation, but in smart logistics, automatic driving has become a standard feature. In recent years, forklift manufacturers have shown their magic. In the navigation mode, some companies choose magnetic track technology, some choose laser technology, and some use camera mode. In addition, smart forklifts can also act as the "eyes" of the warehouse, taking on the task of collecting statistical data for system analysis and improving efficiency. XCMG Forklift has connected all the new forklifts it produces to the cloud, and provides services such as remote maintenance, repairs, and system upgrades with the help of XCMG's industrial Internet platform. Nuoli shares, through the acquisition of related companies, transformed from a traditional equipment manufacturer into an intelligent warehousing and logistics solution provider, and made forklift products more and more "smart" by improving soft power.

For many years, the global forklift industry has been committed to the development of electric forklifts with lower emissions and quiet operation. At first, electric forklifts were generally equipped with lead-acid batteries, which took 10 hours to charge once. Two years ago, lithium battery forklifts that only took 2 to 4 hours to charge at a time were the first to be launched in China and launched a battery revolution for the global forklift industry. In recent years, with the rapid development of China's new energy vehicle market, the lithium battery industry has grown rapidly. The domestic lithium battery has good quality, high stability and reasonable price, allowing the lithium battery forklift to be recognized by customers as soon as it goes on the market. The successful linkage between the two industries of lithium batteries and forklifts soon affected the same industry worldwide. Subsequently, Toyota and other leading international forklift companies have launched lithium battery forklift products.

Not only that, the goal of achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality has further expanded the market space for lithium battery forklifts. According to statistics, in the first half of this year, domestic electric forklift sales reached 211,000 units, an increase of 100.57% year-on-year; China's electric forklift market accounted for 32.51% of the world's electric forklift market, an increase of 9.34 percentage points from 2020, ranking No. 1 in the world one. "Although in terms of inventory, internal combustion forklifts still dominate, but in terms of increments, electric forklifts have already accounted for about 50%." said Lu Ying, deputy secretary general of China Construction Machinery Industry Association.