Analysis of the development trend and market status of China's CNC machine tool industry in 2023!

 What is the development trend and market status of the CNC machine tool industry? The update cycle of CNC machine tools is about 10 years. The last peak period of China's machine tool consumption was 2010-2014. Taking 10 years as the update cycle, China's machine tool consumption has reached 2020 Entering the update and replacement cycle before and after, China's machine tool consumption will be about 170.4 billion yuan in 2021, a substantial increase of 22.6% year-on-year.

From the perspective of the industrial inventory cycle, China may enter the stage of active inventory replenishment in the second half of 2023, which will stimulate the growth of investment in production equipment such as machine tools. In addition, the development and growth of emerging industries such as new energy vehicles and wind power will continue to drive new demand for CNC machine tools.

The Chinese market is the world's largest machine tool consumer and producer, but the overall machine tool industry is characterized by being large but not strong. From a structural point of view, the localization rate of medium and high-end machine tools is still low, and at the same time, most of the core components of machine tools such as CNC systems, guide rails, and lead screws still rely on imports. In the long run, there is broad room for independent and controllable improvement in the industry.

At present, the scale of domestic CNC machine tool companies is generally small, and the industry concentration is relatively low. Compared with the international first-line machine tool manufacturers, leading companies have a large gap, and they have a broad space for domestic substitution.

Overall, the competitive landscape of the domestic CNC machine tool industry presents a trend of state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, and international leading enterprises.

Among them, the first camp is powerful foreign-funded enterprises and multinational companies, mainly oriented to high-end products, and the competition is relatively moderate, such as MAZAK, DMG MORI, OKUMA, Youjia International, etc.

The second camp is large state-owned enterprises, private enterprises with a certain reputation and technical strength, which have covered low-end products and developed into high-end markets, such as Jinan No. 2 Machine Tool Group, Haitian Precision, Genesis, Guosheng Zhike, Kede CNC, Zhe Heideman et al.

The third camp is a large number of private enterprises with low technology content and small scale, as well as a few state-owned enterprises, and the market competition is fierce.

According to the statistical analysis of the "2022-2026 China CNC Machine Tool Industry Competition Pattern and Development Trend Forecast Report" published by Zhongyan Puhua Industry Research Institute:

The numerical control rate of China's machine tools continues to increase, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. On the other hand, because CNC machine tools better solve precision, complex, small-batch and multi-variety processing problems, they have higher processing accuracy and processing efficiency, which is the main direction of machine tool upgrades.

At present, developed countries such as Europe, America, Japan and South Korea have a numerical control ratio of machine tools above 80%. In China, although the numerical control rate of machine tools has continued to increase in recent years, the numerical control rate of metal cutting machine tools has increased from 31.1% in 2010 to about 44.9% in 2021, and the numerical control rate of metal forming machine tools has also increased to 11.4%. However, compared with developed countries such as Europe and the United States, the CNC rate of machine tools in China still has a large room for improvement. Therefore, the replacement of ordinary machine tools with CNC machine tools in the future is also an important factor supporting the continuous growth of China's machine tool output.

The downturn of the industry is often accompanied by the evolution of the competition pattern. Industrial companies are also constantly sharpening their edge in the fierce market competition, and the same is true for the machine tool industry. The rebound in demand has led to an improvement in the industry's prosperity. The machine tool industry is expected to enter a long economic cycle, and the share of domestic machine tools in the mid-to-high-end field is on the rise.

Supported by Huadong Heavy Machinery, it feels that the consumer electronics market is picking up. The current order conversion rate of its consumer electronics-related machine tools will begin to increase at the end of 2022, and the OEM system of non-domestic mainstream smartphone brands has already been supplied in batches. The person further stated that in addition to machine tools for pan-consumer electronics, the supply of products in the fields of auto parts, military industry, and general processing is also accelerating turnover.

The development of the machine tool industry is closely aligned with the feedback of the domestic superior manufacturing industry. The rise of new energy vehicles and aerospace fields has given birth to new opportunities for machine tool companies.

Metal cutting machine tools are one of the most important categories of machine tools. The largest downstream application is the automotive industry, accounting for 45%. The automotive industry needs to mass-produce high-precision and complex workpieces, such as braking systems and power systems, which cannot be separated from the processing of precision machine tools. New energy vehicles have made "motor, battery, and electronic control" a new application scenario for machine tools, and machine tool factories have laid out "three electrics" one after another.

In addition, 3C electronics is one of the important applications of CNC metal cutting machine tools. According to industry data, metal structural parts (such as stainless steel, titanium, aluminum alloy, etc.) and non-metallic structural parts in 3C electronics need to be precisely processed by CNC machine tools. Such structural parts account for about 5%-10% of the cost of electronic products. %.

The overall localization rate of CNC machine tools continues to increase

The overall localization rate continues to increase, and the market structure is still relatively fragmented. According to MIR data, in recent years, driven by policy encouragement and continuous efforts of enterprises, the localization rate of metal cutting machine tools in China has continued to increase, from 57% in 2015 to 67% in 2021. From the perspective of individual enterprises, the current Chinese machine tool market still maintains a relatively fragmented market structure. Among them, companies with relatively high market shares are Genesis (6%), Mazak (5%), Beijing Jingdiao (5%), and Tsugami (5%).

High-end CNC machine tools still rely on imports, which has become one of the important "stuck neck" links. Although from the perspective of market share, the proportion of high-end CNC machine tools represented by five-axis linkage CNC machine tools is not high. However, since the five-axis linkage numerical control technology is one of the important standards to measure the technical level of a country's manufacturing capability of complex precision parts, it is also the only means to solve the machining of key industrial products such as aeroengine impellers, blisks, blades, and marine propellers. However, due to the "Vanasen Agreement" including the United States, Japan, Germany, etc., its member states are prohibited from exporting high-precision five-axis and above high-end CNC machine tools to the control objects. Therefore, it is not only extremely difficult for China to import five-axis machine tools, but even if imported, the price is very expensive. It can also be seen from the localization rate that although the localization rate of China's middle and low-end CNC machine tools has exceeded 60%, the localization rate of high-end CNC machine tools is still less than 10%. Therefore, if China wants to truly realize the transformation from a manufacturing power to a manufacturing power, it is necessary to greatly increase the localization rate of high-end CNC machine tools and other "stuck neck" links.

The main reason restricting the localization rate of high-end CNC machine tools is the low localization rate of core components such as CNC systems and spindles. From the perspective of composition, high-end CNC machine tools are mainly composed of CNC devices, drive systems, machine tool frames, etc. Among them, the CNC system, as the "brain" of the machine tool, is the core component of the CNC machine tool, and its cost accounts for more than 20%. According to the data disclosed by listed machine tool companies, among the core components such as CNC systems and transmission systems of machine tools, except for Kede CNC, which can make its own CNC systems, other companies basically need to purchase their CNC systems from outside. And the core components of the transmission system such as guide rails and lead screws basically need to be purchased by all companies. Therefore, in order to improve the localization rate of CNC machine tools, the most fundamental thing is to improve the self-made ability of the core functional components represented by the CNC system.

Relevant supporting policies for the machine tool industry have been introduced one after another, which is conducive to promoting the development of domestic enterprises. In recent years, in order to support the development of China's machine tool industry, the state has successively issued many important relevant policies. In May 2015, "Made in China 2025" proposed to "develop a batch of precision, high-speed, high-efficiency, flexible CNC machine tools and basic manufacturing equipment and integrated manufacturing systems. Accelerate the research and development of cutting-edge technologies and equipment such as high-end CNC machine tools and additive manufacturing. .In November 2016, the "Notice on Printing and Distributing the "13th Five-Year" National Strategic Emerging Industry Development Plan" proposed to "accelerate the research and development and industrialization of high-end CNC machine tools and intelligent machining centers, and break through multi-axis, multi-channel, high-precision High-end CNC systems, servo motors and other main functional components and key application software". At the SASAC party committee meeting in August 2021, it was also emphasized that key core technologies should be strengthened for industrial master machines, high-end chips, new materials, and new energy vehicles. , and strive to create the original technology "origin".

In September 2022, China's first batch of machine tool industry ETFs were successfully issued. In the same month, ISO23218, the first international standard series of machine tool CNC system led by China, was officially released. This standard is one of the landmark achievements of the 04 National Science and Technology Major Project. In addition, the 200 billion-amount special re-loan for equipment renewal and transformation established by the People's Bank of China will also help the upgrading of the machine tool industry. In the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, it is also proposed to "adhere to the focus of economic development on the real economy, promote new industrialization, and accelerate the construction of a manufacturing power, a quality power, a space power, a transportation power, a network power, and a digital China. .Implement industrial foundation reengineering projects and major technological equipment research projects, support the development of specialized, special and new enterprises, and promote the high-end, intelligent, and green development of the manufacturing industry."