Just after the 2025 Lunar New Year, the mining machinery industry has already shown tremendous momentum, with many enterprises achieving a "good start."

On February 4, Shandong Lingong held a grand 2025 New Year gathering and a ceremony for shipping 1,000 units of equipment overseas. The 1,000 units shipped this time cover the full product line, including E6375H, E6505H, and E6730H large excavators, L956H loaders, and L968HEV electric loaders.

On February 5, XCMG's global departure ceremony for high-end open-pit mining equipment was held at XCMG Mining Machinery Co., Ltd. in Xuzhou. A series of high-end open-pit mining equipment with a total value of 318 million yuan will be delivered in a concentrated manner to customers around the world.

On February 7, at Zoomlion's good-start departure ceremony, a total of more than 1,300 units of earthmoving machinery and mining machinery equipment were shipped, with a total value of more than 900 million yuan. These equipment are sent to all parts of the world, injecting strong momentum into global construction.

The "good start" activities of the above three enterprises are only a microcosm of the fierce momentum of the mining machinery industry in 2025. At present, the entire mining machinery industry is in a vigorous and rapidly developing trend.

I. Mining machinery with fierce momentum

According to data from the China Heavy Machinery Industry Association, the revenue/profit of China's mining machinery industry in 2021, 2022, and 2023 were 263.5/13.8 billion yuan, 299.5/18 billion yuan, and 315.1/21 billion yuan, respectively. In terms of exports, China's mining machinery industry achieved a total import and export value of 5.482 billion US dollars from January to December 2024, a year-on-year increase of 24.09%. Among them, the export value was 5.192 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 25.58%.

Not only is China's mining machinery market developing rapidly, but so is the global mining machinery market. According to statistics from Mordor Intelligence, the global mining equipment market space reached 98 billion US dollars in 2024 and is expected to reach 135 billion US dollars by 2029, with a five-year compound annual growth rate of about 5.12%. The global mining equipment market space exceeds 100 billion US dollars.

Soochow Securities predicts: "With the steady growth of Chinese enterprises' overseas mining investment, the global brand influence of domestic open-pit mining machinery is gradually being established. Mining customers have high requirements for product stability and reliability, strong brand stickiness, and deep barriers in the original equipment market. Once a breakthrough is made, stable demand is expected to form. At the same time, mining customers have large demand for spare parts, are insensitive to price, and the aftermarket has large profit potential." In the next few years, mining machinery will become a new growth point for construction machinery.

Man Zaipeng, a researcher at Sinolink Securities, used the four characters "large, high, stable, and breakthrough" to describe the development of the global mining machinery industry. Specifically, "large" refers to the large market space and the large room for domestic equipment to replace foreign equipment; "high" indicates that capital expenditure is in an upward cycle, and high resource prices support high prosperity. "Stable" is reflected in the rise in resource demand, which is conducive to the steady growth of mining equipment demand; the stable growth of the aftermarket has become a "stabilizer" for the performance of overseas leaders. "Breakthrough" means that the global share of Chinese mining equipment manufacturers is increasing, and the path to breaking through is becoming clearer.

II. Mining machinery is advancing toward complete sets, electrification, and intelligence

Facing the global mining market with great development potential and high prosperity, domestic mining machinery manufacturers have continuously improved in technological innovation, product quality, and service levels, gaining wide recognition from overseas customers and gradually establishing global brand influence.

Especially in terms of complete-set equipment and solutions, many domestic enterprises have achieved impressive results and gained market recognition.

At bauma China 2024, Zoomlion launched a high-end heavy equipment complete-set solution for large open-pit mines. At the site, super-large mining excavators such as ZE730G, ZE900G, ZE1050G, and ZE1650G were exhibited, paired with the "golden partners" mining wide-body trucks ZT115G and ZT160HEV.

In September 2024, XCMG delivered 100 sets of complete mining equipment to the northwest market. The equipment delivered this time covered combinations of "excavation and haulage" equipment such as XCMG XE950G Pro and XE1350 mining excavators and 70-90 ton mining dump trucks.

On the other hand, with the enhancement of global environmental awareness and the advancement of green mine construction, electrified and intelligent mining equipment has become an inevitable trend in industry development.

In July 2024, LiuGong's largest electric excavator, the 995FE, was put into use at a mine in southern China for surface stripping and bulk material loading operations, marking a new breakthrough by LiuGong in the development and practical application of large-tonnage electric excavators.

Zhongke Yungu, under Zoomlion, has created an overall smart mining solution. With "unmanned mining truck driving and remote control" as the core, the solution can achieve excavator-truck coordination, unmanned driving, and integrated software and hardware of the digital system, enabling unmanned operation throughout the entire process of mining, excavation, transportation, and unloading, and solving mine safety issues at the source.

In addition to the continuous attention attracted by new technologies and new products, the overseas performance of domestic mining machinery brands is equally impressive. In the first half of 2024, Zoomlion's overseas revenue from mining machinery increased by nearly 180% year on year. In the first half of 2024, XCMG's international revenue accounted for 44%, of which mining excavator revenue accounted for more than 30%. Sany mining machinery has widely entered countries and regions such as Central Asia and the Middle East. LiuGong received orders for more than 100 units of equipment at the Brazil International Construction and Mining Machinery Exhibition.

With the national digital development strategy and the wave of intelligent development, the application of cutting-edge technologies such as AI and big data in mine construction is accelerating. In 2025, industry leaders will be more active in developing intelligent equipment, exploring clean energy applications, adhering to the transformation from low-carbon to zero-carbon technology routes, and empowering green mine construction with new quality productive forces.

III. Challenges and opportunities coexist

1 Gaps in key core technologies

China's industry started relatively late. Compared with international enterprises with a history of more than a hundred years, there is still a certain gap in technological accumulation and updating. Take the hydraulic system as an example. This is a key component of mining machinery and directly affects the power transmission and operational precision of the equipment. At present, some high-end hydraulic components in China still rely on imports. For example, for the hydraulic pumps and valve groups of some large mining excavators, domestic products still lag behind the international advanced level in stability, reliability, and service life.

To break free from the technological constraints of international leading enterprises, Chinese enterprises must innovate independently. In recent years, the Chinese government has introduced a series of policy measures to support the domestic substitution of key core components of mining machinery. For example, the "National Manufacturing High-Quality Development Plan during the 14th Five-Year Plan Period" clearly proposes to accelerate breakthroughs in key core technologies and enhance independent innovation capability; the "National New Industrialization Development Action Outline (2021-2035)" also emphasizes promoting the security and stability of the intelligent equipment industrial chain and supply chain and strengthening independent controllability. With policy support, domestic enterprises are actively responding to the call, increasing R&D investment, and accelerating technological progress.

Regarding technology and R&D, Chinese enterprises are actually already on the way. In 2024, new domestic mining machinery products emerged frequently. At the new product launch conference for super-large mining machinery, Zoomlion grandly released the 400-ton mining excavator ZE4000G flagship product. XCMG Group's first hybrid excavator, the XE650GK HEV, rolled off the production line, adopting advanced hybrid technology and expected to save operating costs. Sany Heavy Industry launched a full series of equipment for mine backfill operations, supporting the harmless disposal of solid waste. Taiyuan Heavy Industry Group delivered its first 160-ton new energy wide-body truck, the TZK110H, and upgraded the wide-body truck to the TZK160, covering multiple power modes. LiuGong Group shipped its first batch of unmanned methanol range-extended electric dump trucks, marking its progress in unmanned driving technology and improving work efficiency and safety.

2 Insufficient aftermarket services and talent shortage

The business model of mining machinery is the classic "razor + blade" model. Aftermarket business accounts for as much as 70% of total revenue and is a key lever for mining machinery enterprises to sustain profitability and enhance customer stickiness. Compared with general construction machinery equipment, mining machinery has harsh working environments, long working hours, and complex and diverse failure types, creating strong aftermarket service demands. Moreover, the downtime cost of mining machinery far exceeds that of general construction machinery. When downtime occurs due to failure, the economic loss caused to mining enterprises may be as high as thousands of US dollars per hour. Therefore, maintenance and overhaul are necessary measures to ensure the economic benefits of mining enterprises.

How to establish a sound after-sales service system and provide timely and effective technical support and repair services to meet various customer needs is a considerable challenge for domestic mining machinery enterprises.

In addition, talent shortage is also a difficulty in developing aftermarket services. Due to the characteristics of the industry, the workplaces of mining machinery practitioners are generally located in remote areas, and the working and living environments are relatively poor. This has led many talents to be unwilling to enter the mining machinery industry, resulting in a shortage of talent in the mining machinery industry and thus restricting industry development.

At present, the state has carried out a series of reforms and innovations in higher education, adding related majors such as mining machinery, and has cultivated many high-quality talents for the mining machinery industry. At the same time, enterprises should also pay attention to the introduction and training of technical talents and may appropriately provide more benefits and remuneration, thereby promoting the continuous accumulation and improvement of talent reserves in the mining machinery industry.

Despite the challenges, we cannot deny that the prospects of China's mining machinery market are worth anticipating. With the increase in global mining investment, the influence of policy factors, and the continuous improvement of the product competitiveness of mining machinery, the mining machinery market is expected to continue growing in the future. In the future, through solid progress on the transformation path of "high-end, intelligent, green, service-oriented, and internationalized" development, Chinese mining machinery enterprises will surely reach the top of the world!