The development potential of domestic high-end cutting tool market

In 2010, China's total domestic production of knives was 29 billion yuan. In addition to supplying the domestic market, it exported 7 billion yuan in knives. In the same year, China's tool consumption reached 33 billion yuan, ranking first in the world. This shows that last year China's domestic sales of knives on the domestic market were 22 billion yuan, and foreign brand cutter sales were 11 billion yuan, accounting for 1/3 of the tool consumption in China.

"This clear data is enough to show that China has become the world's most promising market for cutting tools." Shen Zhuangxing, honorary chairman of the China Machine Tool Industry Association Tool Branch, said in an interview, "Compared with the international tool market, the domestic tool market In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the speed of recovery has been extremely rapid, and the market capacity has always maintained a rising trend. The market share of domestically-made cutting tools has also stabilized at more than 65%. However, in the field of high-end cutting tools, domestic cutting tool companies still need to make greater efforts."

The domestic tool market has great potential for development. In 2009, when the financial crisis struck, the overall spending of the domestic tool market dropped by only about 15%, while the consumption of cutting tools in developed countries generally declined by 40 to 45%. However, only a year later, driven by the strong demand for manufacturing, the total spending on the domestic tool market quickly recovered and surpassed the highest level in history, reaching a record high of 33 billion yuan.

In 2011, the domestic tool market maintained rapid growth and it is expected to create a new historical high. "Statistical data show that the first half of the domestic tool market achieved a growth rate of 25-30%. Although the growth rate has declined since July, it can still achieve 15% growth for the whole year," said Shen Zhuangxing. In comparison, the international tool market has maintained a stable recovery in recent years, but the conservative estimate of the average annual growth rate is only maintained at about 3 to 5%. After the domestic market has experienced rapid growth in the past year, it will gradually maintain the average annual growth rate. The growth rate is between 10% and 15%. Therefore, the domestic tool market capacity growth rate will be more than 3 times faster than the international market.

Therefore, Shen Zhuangxing believes that China has become the world's most promising tool market, and that many multinational tooling groups are also the development strategy of the post-crisis era. The Asia-Pacific headquarters, R&D center, training center, logistics center, etc. have all settled in China, thus taking China as the center to radiate into Asia, serving customers more directly and conveniently to better meet the special needs of customers in the Asia Pacific region.

The reason why the Chinese market is so valued is that the main reason for this is that the share of sales in the Chinese market is increasing in the proportion of its global market share. In order to firmly grasp the Chinese market, foreign tool manufacturing companies are carefully studying the needs of China's equipment industry. For example, Seco Tools set up the Industry Development Department this year, aiming to study the industry and focus on providing typical parts processing for the industry. solution. The technical experts of this department are each responsible for a key industry, pay attention to the development of the industry, solve the technical problems of tool application in the industry, and provide tool application training to customers in this industry from time to time.

The market share of high-end tooling market is too small to worry “Despite the fact that domestic tools account for 2/3 of the market share in China’s tool consumption market, high-end domestic tools, represented by modern and efficient tools, account for only 2 billion yuan, and imports of 11 billion yuan. Most of the cutting tools are high-end tools. This should cause domestic tool companies to pay attention." Shen Zhuangxing told reporters.

In recent years, the technological development in many high-end manufacturing fields in China has brought new demands to the tools. For example, automotive tools must have high efficiency, high stability, and specialization. With the continuous development of the automotive industry, new requirements have emerged. From a technical point of view, there are mainly heavy-duty, composite, and specializations. The trend of standardization, high speed, and variety of varieties. In the field of aerospace manufacturing, with the wide application of difficult-to-machine materials such as titanium alloys and high-temperature alloys, how to properly select and use cutting tools for efficient and high-quality cutting has become a very important topic in the industry.

Closer to the water, the Chinese-made knives were supposed to have the advantages of time, location, and humanity in providing tool services for the aforementioned manufacturing fields. In fact, the imported tools basically occupy the high-end users of the machining industry, especially in the automobile engine manufacturing workshop, the aircraft engine manufacturing enterprise machining workshop or the steam turbine manufacturing workshop, and are almost imported tools in the efficient and high-precision machining tools. Monopoly, it is difficult to see the traces of domestic tools. The domestic tools are mostly used in medium and low-demand customer groups, such as agricultural machinery, motorcycles, agricultural vehicles, general machinery, and middle and low-end machinery manufacturing industries.

Not only that, the extensive development of the manufacturing industry has led to an unbalanced development of machine tools and tools. Statistics show that the consumption ratio of CNC machine tools and cutting tools in foreign developed countries is 2:1, while the proportion in China is too low, and the total amount of tool consumption is still not 1/5 of the total consumption of machine tools. Many manufacturing companies spend a lot of money to purchase machine tools, but they are shrinking in tool consumption, and they are reluctant to purchase advanced and efficient tools. The market demand for traditional tools has been high for a long time. This is also an important reason why many domestic tool companies do not want to enter advanced and efficient tool production.

At the same time, we must face up to the gap between Chinese cutting tool companies and foreign companies, including basic technologies, innovation capabilities, promotion capabilities, and service capabilities. The user needs and tool companies should be made to lead in innovation. Leading companies should take the lead in the application of technology. However, Shen Zhuangxing said that some key domestic enterprises and new outstanding private enterprises have made great progress in the development of modern and efficient tools, such as Zhuzhou Diamond, Xiamen Golden Heron and Arnold Knives. These companies attach importance to technological progress and will provide services. Put in the first place and achieved remarkable results in related fields.