When the tower crane market was booming, several thousand units could be sold in a single month; now that the tower crane market has cooled, it takes an entire year to sell several thousand units.

According to statistics, tower crane sales in 2020 reached 50,000 units, with average monthly sales of 4,166 units. Now that the market has cooled, from January to May 2025, a total of 2,334 tower cranes were sold, with average monthly sales of only 466 units—a gap over five years that is lamentable. The decline in tower crane sales has multiple causes: severe overcapacity, the continued downturn in real estate, and intense market involution.

So under such circumstances, what efforts have China's tower crane manufacturers made to survive? Construction Machinery Brand Network will interpret this for you from three aspects: technological innovation, market expansion, and cost control.

Technological Innovation

Increasing investment in core technology research and continuously enhancing technological innovation capabilities is the breakthrough strategy adopted by many enterprises to cope with the market decline. Through technological innovation, enterprises seek to improve product performance across all dimensions, thereby enhancing their market competitiveness.

As the world's top-ranked tower crane manufacturer for many years, Zoomlion has continuously taken the crown of "world's best" with a series of industry-first tower crane products, setting records including the world's largest tonnage flat-top tower crane, the world's longest jib tower crane, the world's largest tonnage internal climbing luffing jib tower crane, the world's largest wind power luffing jib tower crane, and the first unmanned tower crane. At the same time, tower cranes have become the "vanguard" for Zoomlion to venture into the technology "no man's land," with advanced achievements such as the 5G tower crane remote intelligent control system continuously emerging.

Zoomlion is also the first undertaking unit of an ISO secretariat in China's construction machinery industry, with 11 registered experts on the ISO Crane Technical Committee, extensively participating in the work of multiple project groups including mobile cranes, tower cranes, and remote data exchange. In 2024, the ISO Crane Technical Committee held a series of meetings in Sydney, Australia, during which multiple international standards led by Zoomlion—including ISO 12480-1 "Cranes—Safe use—Part 1: General," ISO 9928-3 "Cranes—Crane operating manual—Part 3: Tower cranes," ISO 4302 "Wind load assessment," and ISO 7296-1 "Cranes—Graphical symbols—Part 1: General"—made important progress.

To date, Zoomlion has led and participated in the formulation and revision of 30 international standards, among which multiple international standards it led have been officially published and issued. It is the first Chinese enterprise in the industry to lead the formulation and revision of international standards that have been officially published and issued, and also the Chinese enterprise with the largest number of such publications, greatly enhancing its own international influence and the international discourse power of China's construction machinery industry.

XCMG has also made considerable achievements in tower crane technological innovation. On October 14, 2024, the world's largest tower crane, XCMG XGT23000-760S, rolled off the production line at XCMG's tower crane intelligent factory, leading in five performance indicators including rated load moment and maximum lifting capacity, breaking through more than 60 key technologies. XCMG's 10 core technologies, such as the dual-jib parallel combination and the multi-mechanism four-trolley four-hook coordinated operation technology, along with technologies like the attachment technology for super-large tower cranes with super-large overhang and super-high height and the manufacturing technology for large-cross-section high-reliability structural components, have once again achieved breakthroughs and innovations.

In addition, at the XCMG International Customer Festival on May 20, 2025, XCMG also showcased the XGT55000-1000S tower crane, which had not yet been delivered. With a rated load moment of 55,000 tonne-meters, a maximum lifting capacity of 800 tons, an independent lifting height of 130 meters, and resistance to Category 17 typhoons, once this machine is officially rolled off the line and delivered, it will become a new-generation heavy-duty tower crane.

LiuGong Jianghan has performed impressively in the research and development of products such as unmanned elevators and hoistway elevators. Its intelligent hoistway construction elevator is suitable for installation and construction in various elevator hoistways, featuring high transport efficiency and a wide range of applications; it is a domestically pioneering product that serves multiple purposes and functions in one machine.

Facing issues such as an aging population, rising labor costs, and increasingly strict safety requirements, LiuGong Jianghan launched an unmanned intelligent construction elevator that achieves driverless operation through intelligent control, effectively alleviating the difficulties of labor shortage and high costs. At the same time, utilizing the Jianghan Cloud Platform functions combined with 5G, big data, and other technologies, it helps accelerate the implementation of smart construction, fully meeting the diversified needs of different customers and demonstrating LiuGong Jianghan's technical strength in intelligence, safety, and customization.

Market Expansion

Market expansion is mainly divided into two parts: first, expansion into overseas markets; second, expansion by finding application scenarios outside the construction industry.

Yongmao Construction Machinery has developed rapidly in overseas markets in recent years, with the proportion of overseas revenue continuously increasing. In 2024, Yongmao's sales reached 790.8 million yuan, of which the Chinese market accounted for 39.6%; Asian markets other than China became Yongmao's largest regional market, accounting for 39.7% of sales; although the proportion of business in the United States and Europe was low, growth was very obvious, with the sales proportion rising from 0.4% last year to 8.2%. Currently, Yongmao's sales network covers more than 80 countries and regions across Asia, Europe, the Americas, Oceania, and Africa, and its products hold certifications from multiple countries including EU CE, Korea KOSHA, Singapore MOM, Australia, and Russia.

As the installed capacity of China's onshore wind power market continues to grow, demand for wind power luffing jib tower cranes is also constantly increasing. Since first launching the LW2340-180NA wind power luffing jib tower crane in 2021, Zoomlion has continued to promote product iteration and upgrading to meet market demand, and its series products have been successfully applied in various wind power scenarios such as mountains, hills, lakes, and plains. In May 2025, Zoomlion's 216-meter wind power luffing jib tower crane LW2800A-200NA was officially released in Changde and subsequently completed its hoisting debut in the Qinhuangdao Goldwind Funing 100MW wind power project. This innovative masterpiece from Zoomlion once again adds super equipment for onshore ultra-high wind turbine hoisting and also demonstrates Zoomlion's strong strength in leading the development of the global tower crane industry.

The concentrated solar power and photovoltaic fields are also application scenarios expanded by tower cranes. The ZTT1360 large intelligent tower crane developed by Zhongtian Intelligent Equipment participated in the construction of the "Aksai Huidong New Energy Concentrated Solar Power + Photovoltaic Pilot Project," the largest single-unit tower-type concentrated solar power project under construction in China. The ZTT1360 super-large intelligent tower crane has a rated load moment of 1,364 tm, an independent height of 86 m, a maximum overhang of 61.6 m, and an attachment spacing of 45.6 m, greatly reducing the number of attachments during construction; its main limbs adopt patented sealed-cavity technology, eliminating the risk of internal cavity corrosion and ensuring the product's durability. The crane is equipped with a mature and reliable control system independently developed by Zhongtian: the ZPI tower crane intelligent control system, which integrates all of Zhongtian's patented tower crane intelligent control technologies to achieve safe hoisting, stable hoisting, and efficient hoisting.

The birth of a series of XCMG super-large tower cranes such as the XGT7300-260S, XGT8300-320S, and XGT15000-600S has made XCMG tower cranes famous in the bridge construction field. In October 2024, the XCMG XGT23000-760S was officially rolled off the line and delivered; after rolling off the line, this equipment was applied to the Wanlong Bridge construction project in Nansha, Guangzhou, contributing to the construction of a major national project.

Cost Control

Under the cooled market situation, enterprises can enhance their risk resistance by controlling costs, thereby promoting sustainable development.

For enterprises, intelligent transformation of factories is one of the important means of cost control. Since 2021, Zhongtian Intelligent Equipment has successively developed three intelligent production lines, with equipment investment for each line exceeding 10 million yuan. Currently, Zhongtian Intelligent Equipment has achieved standardization and intelligence in the manufacturing and quality inspection of components such as tower crane standard sections and upper and lower supports, greatly shortening production cycles and improving product quality, with several main production sections reducing manpower input by 40% to 50%.

Improving the transportation process is also a method for enterprises to control costs. Through the patent "dual-section jib assembly device, assembly structure, and dual-section jib container packing method," Zoomlion has improved the utilization rate of container transport space and reduced the number of containers used and the frequency of using special containers, thereby lowering the ocean shipping costs for tower crane exports. This patented technology is suitable for the overseas packaging and transportation of Zoomlion tower cranes below 450 tonne-meters and has been widely applied in Zoomlion's batch export business of tower cranes with triangular cross-section jibs, boosting the growth of Zoomlion's overseas tower crane business.

Facing the cooled tower crane market, Chinese enterprises have tried every means to boost the market in recent years and have indeed achieved certain results, but unfortunately the decline in the tower crane market has been too large. Compared with the peak sales of 50,000 units in 2020, current sales have dropped by about 90%, and judging from the current industry situation, the tower crane market will most likely continue to decline in the next one to two years, and some domestic tower crane enterprises may exit the market.