“We were a Chinese company; we want to be an international company.” Zoomlion vice president and mobile crane branch general manager Yanming Xiong told Cranes Today.
He said that the company focuses on its mid-tonnage cranes, not its highest-capacity cranes, for export. It exported 800 mobile cranes and crawlers in 2007, and the Middle East was the most popular destination.
Exclusive dealers include Al Wasit in Sharjah, UAE, Lewis Equipment in the USA, and Crowland Cranes business Universal in the UK. The basic requirement for a dealer is the ability to do maintenance. Dealers also keep spare parts. A one-year warranty for these cranes is standard.
The company is currently developing 200t and 250t all-terrain cranes, and a luffing boom for its 260t crawler. On its south-hall stand at ConExpo, it showed the four-axle 70t capacity QY70V truck crane. Outside, US distributor Lewis Equipment showed a QUY260 crawler crane, and a tower crane from Chinese manufacturer Fushun Yongmao.
It has delivered the first unit of a 400t crawler to the Guangdong Power Company for a power station building project.
A total of three units of its 600t crawler crane model shown at Bauma China have been made.
The company is currently building a new factory to make all its cranes – crawler, all-terrain, and truck cranes – under one roof.
Xiong said that the company was not too worried about XCMG’s dominance of the mobile crane market – it took more than 50% of the 2006 market, by sales revenue, according to CCMA figures, almost three times the share of Zoomlion. “The basics for any manufacturer is to get enterprises sustainable, healthy and stable for developing.”
Huang Qun, general manager of Zoomlion construction hoist branch, which includes its tower cranes manufacturing division, divides the tower crane export business into two categories: the developing world, where it has already had success in the Middle East, South Asia and South America, and the developed world.
The company’s progress in the developed world took a big step forward in the second half of 2007, when it took orders for two units of its 200tm-class TC 7030B, one in Belgium and the other in Australia. As of mid-March, the cranes were being delivered and erected. The company exported 300 towers in 2007.
Zoomlion is extending its products with three new models at the top of its range for 2009: the saddle-jib T8039-25, with maximum 80m jib, at the end of which it can lift 3.9t, and has a maximum lifting capacity of 25t. Also coming is a TCT 7527-20 topless tower, and Zoomlion’s first luffer, the TCR6055-32. All three are intended primarily for export.
