What is the current status and ranking of Chinese bearings in the world?

Dec 16, 2024

As an indispensable component in contemporary mechanical equipment, bearings are known as the "joints" of mechanical equipment. They play a vital role in reducing the friction coefficient between mechanical rotating bodies and ensuring the rotation accuracy of mechanical rotating bodies. It is widely used in various industrial fields and is a basic and strategic industry of the country. Its development level and industrial scale reflect the comprehensive industrial strength of a country. The following is a detailed analysis of the current status and status of Chinese bearings in the world:

1. Production scale

China is the world's largest bearing producer, with an annual output of 20 billion sets, which is huge. This output not only meets domestic demand but also exports a large amount to the international market. However, despite the huge output, there still needs to be a certain gap between Chinese bearings and developed countries in terms of quality and technical level.

2. Market share

In terms of global market share, Chinese bearing manufacturers account for about 20% of the global market share, of which 80% are sold to the Asian market, 10% are sold to the European market, and less than 7% of bearings are sold to the US market. It shows that Chinese bearings have certain competitiveness in the international market but are mainly concentrated in the low-end and mid-end markets.

3. Technical level

Although China has a huge output of bearings, there still needs to be a large gap in the production of high-end bearings. The core materials, processing equipment and testing methods of high-end bearings are still in the hands of developed countries such as Japan and Germany. It makes China's high-end bearings highly dependent on imports and more sensitive to fluctuations in the international market.

However, in recent years, the technical level of China's bearing industry has continued to improve, especially in the fields of wind power and automobiles. Through independent research and development and technological upgrades, domestic bearings are gradually moving towards the high-end market. However, to achieve a qualitative leap, more breakthroughs are needed in core technology, material science, heat treatment technology, etc.

4. Market competition

The global bearing market has formed a situation where international competition and domestic competition coexist. From the perspective of international competition, the eight major multinational bearing companies (SKF, Schaeffler, NSK, JTEKT, NTN, NMB, Nachi and Timken) account for more than 70% of the global bearing market, and these companies even more monopolize the high-end market. It makes Chinese bearing companies face fierce competitive pressure in the international market.

In terms of the domestic market, China's bearing industry is mainly concentrated in private and foreign-funded enterprises in East China and state-owned traditional heavy industrial bases in Northeast China and Luoyang. With the continuous improvement of China's marketization, private bearing companies continue to enter the bearing manufacturing industry and become the main development force of China's bearing industry. However, competition among domestic bearing companies is also increasingly fierce, and price wars and quality wars occur from time to time.

5. Future Outlook

In the future, China's bearing industry will face more opportunities and challenges. On the one hand, with the transformation and upgrading of the global manufacturing industry and the growth trend in the field of high-end manufacturing, bearing manufacturing companies will have a broader market space. On the other hand, competition in the international market will be more intense, and technical barriers and trade barriers will also bring greater pressure to Chinese-bearing companies.

Therefore, Chinese bearing companies need to strengthen technological innovation and industrial upgrading, improve product quality and technical level, and achieve import substitution and industrial upgrading. At the same time, it is also necessary to strengthen brand building and market development to improve international competitiveness. Only in this way can Chinese bearings occupy a more important position in the global market.

In summary, the current status of Chinese bearings in the world's bearings is that the output is huge, but the technical level needs to be improved; the market share is large but mainly concentrated in the middle and low-end markets, facing fierce international and domestic market competition. In the future, Chinese bearing companies need to strengthen technological innovation and industrial upgrading, and improve product quality and technical level to achieve greater development and breakthroughs.