Global Equipment Sales Fall 7% on Weak Chinese Market

Global construction equipment sales fell 7% in 2022 down from the record high sales of 2021 – a slump that was entirely due to the collapse of demand in China.

According to data from analytics firm Off-Highway Research, about 1.7 million pieces of construction equipment were sold worldwide last year, down from the 1.9 million units that were sold in 2020 at the height of the Covid 19 pandemic.

The Chinese market has been on a decline – which is quite understandable after a 2020 stimulus spending that grew the market by a record 30% in that year. 

Indeed, when China is stripped out of the equation, construction equipment sales in the world rose 7% in 2022.

“After the pronounced, stimulus-driven spike in sales in China in 2020 and 2021, the market will fall back over the course of 2022 and 2023 to more natural levels of around 300,000 units per year,” Off-Highway Research had earlier predicted.

“Although this is a steep fall from 2020’s high of 412,000-unit sales, this represents a return to normal, rather than a worrying collapse.”

Soft landing

The company’s forecast for 2023 is a 7% decline in global sales, and a 5% drop when China is stripped out of the equation.

Although single-digit year-on-year falls in equipment sales are expected for the 2022-2025 review period, the decline is more of a soft landing as sales will stay above a million units per year, a figure that was only achieved twice before 2020.

This prediction is based on the anticipated growth in infrastructure investment across the world and the premise that rising interest rates will only slow down residential construction, rather than stop it completely.

However, there are fears that the market could slow down further due to heightened inflationary pressures arising from the war in Ukraine.

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