Since this year, the pace of internationalization of my country’s construction machinery industry has continued to accelerate.
While “big” large-scale equipment is being sold overseas, a batch of domestically produced machinery and equipment with small stature are quietly becoming popular in overseas markets.
Mini excavators, small lawn mowers, electric tricycles, these seemingly inconspicuous “small” equipment have gained great popularity in the international market, and orders are coming in one after another.
Domestic “small” excavators are popular overseas
In Jining, Shandong, the exhibition hall of a construction machinery company has transformed into a global live broadcast room, where anchors promote small excavating equipment to customers in different regions around the world.
This intuitive, transparent and realistic factory live broadcast mode is an important channel for this company’s small and micro excavators to go overseas. It originated from the company’s unexpected appearance of a micro excavator with a dead weight of only 1.2 tons on overseas social platforms.
At first, Norwegian bloggers were attracted by its small size and low price of less than $2,000.
After experience and testing, we found that this mini excavator can be used flexibly in various scenarios using different attachments.
The evaluation process was made into a video and posted online, which has been viewed more than 4 million times.
With the traffic brought by its popular products, this company’s small and micro excavators quickly opened up in overseas markets.
The company took advantage of the situation and signed a contract with the Norwegian blogger to be responsible for marketing and product sales in the Nordic region.
The key to the explosive growth of small and micro excavator exports is cost advantage.
According to reports, the bulk purchase cost is only 1/3 or even 1/4 of similar foreign products.
This confidence comes from the technological transformation and upgrading of enterprises and the complete local industrial chain in Jining.
Over 80% of the parts required for small excavators are purchased locally in Jining. Orders are placed on the same day and stored in the warehouse on the same day, saving 10% on market procurement costs.
The person in charge of the company said that in the past month, an average of more than 260 small and micro excavators were exported every day.
In order to make products go overseas more smoothly, they have extended their logistics services overseas, and customers can pick up the goods on-site at overseas warehouses.
In 2025, the company will produce and sell 15,000 units, with overseas sales accounting for 75%.
Industrial chain support + scene customization
We learned that overseas customers mainly use mini excavators to take care of their own courtyards, and their core demands are that the product should be small in size and have strong performance.
Therefore, lightweighting has become a key research direction for many companies.
There are also local companies that have shifted their research and development focus from “volume reduction” to “scene customization”.
Han Guangfei, the person in charge of another company, used to mainly produce small road rollers. In 2020, seeing the local small and micro excavator industry becoming popular, he transformed and started making differentiated and customized small and micro excavators.
In 2021, Han Guangfei’s sales of small and micro excavators will double.
Observing the fierce competition among small and micro excavators and limited room for profit growth, Han Guangfei turned his attention to another product targeting European and American courtyard application scenarios – small crawler lawn mowers.
Small crawler lawn mowers seem to be a completely new field, but their technology and craftsmanship are in the same vein as small and micro excavators.
Relying on the mature construction machinery industry cluster and local supporting ecology of Jining High-tech Zone, most of the spare parts required for the products can be completed without leaving Jining High-tech Zone.
Electric tricycles are popular in international markets
In Suining, Sichuan, small and practical electric tricycles are also accelerating their pace of going overseas.
In an electric tricycle manufacturing company, dozens of electric tricycles are displayed in the exhibition hall, covering various application scenarios such as passenger transportation, freight transportation, and engineering operations.
Workers are busy loading trucks for shipment.
This batch of goods will be transported to Laos via China-Europe freight train containers and the New Western Land-Sea Corridor train.
The company previously focused on domestic sales and will start testing overseas markets in 2024. Its products are mainly sold to South Asia, Central Asia, Africa and other places.
In order to cover a wider area, the new model has customized “Please note when reversing” voice prompts adapted to six languages.
Deng Yu, the person in charge of the company, said that overseas orders increased sharply after obtaining overseas access qualification certification. Orders will exceed 100,000 units in 2026, and 40% will be sold overseas.
After the explosive growth of production and sales, the existing production capacity is difficult to match the order demand, and the expansion of the factory area is imminent.
There are five electric tricycle manufacturers in Anju District, Suining City, Sichuan. With the surge in overseas orders, most of them are expanding production.
Small products such as micro excavators, lawn mowers, and electric tricycles are becoming increasingly popular overseas.
They target the actual needs of overseas families and individual users, avoiding the traditional large-scale engineering track.
The “cost-effectiveness” they win over overseas users is no longer low price, but the overall strength of technological innovation, supply chain collaboration, and market services.
The popularity of “small size” is a microcosm of the competition of speed, price and quality made in China in segmented tracks.
As competition in market segments becomes increasingly fierce, only by continuing to innovate and making up for shortcomings can we continue to advance and achieve steady and long-term development.
