Forbes’ story, The Battle for China’s Construction-Machinery Market , accurately points out the strength of Chinese manufacturers of wheel loaders in their own country, but I think stretches credibility when it suggests Chinese makers are likely to claim the domestic excavator market as well. Chinese market share is important to all equipment buyers because the Asian giant rivals North America as the world’s largest construction-equipment consumer. Inevitably, an equipment maker’s success in China will influence how much that maker can spend on research and development and support programs. Here's why Chinese makers dominate domestic wheel-loader manufacture, but offshore competitors such as Komatsu, Caterpillar, Doosan, Hitachi, John Deere, and others are likely to kick butt in excavators, and possibly take some loader market share in China. All the best, Larry
Why anyone would listen to Steve Forbes is beyond me. Every time he opens his mouth he sounds more like a nut job. It seems he is given credence for intelligence because of what his father achieved. What I have heard and seen from Chinese built machines is that they only want to build them and sell them. They have no interest in the things staying running at all. They also have a huge penchant for patent infringements. There may even be a move afoot to move some outsourced work back here. This article illustrates how it isn't all candy and roses over there. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2012712273_reshoring29.html
Manufactures and Dealers, Need to do Life Cycle Costing Heavy Equipment Manufactures and Dealers, need to do Dynamic Life Cycle Costing to compete with low cost imports. If someone only looks at machine price, they should buy a machine with 15,000 hours on it. No doubt they will get a low price. The real issue should never be price. The issue needs to be the Total Cost per Hour, over a 5,7 or 10 year Life Cycle in your equipment inventory. You would be surprised to see how little quality costs.