In XCMG Heavy Duty’s national pilot-level smart factory, the world’s largest wheeled crane production base, more than 2,500 merchants from more than 100 countries and regions around the world walked through the crape myrtle corridor held up by steel giant arms and witnessed a “dream” expression of the construction machinery industry.
The giant flexible screen weighing more than 20 tons was steadily lifted to an altitude of 40 meters by 6 cranes. The “world’s first crane” XCA4000 and the 1100-ton crawler crane were arranged on both sides. 81 dancers performed on the same stage as the symphony orchestra carried by AGV unmanned vehicles… This was the scene of the 8th International Customer Festival of XCMG that just concluded.
In eight years and eight sessions, from the initial 300 merchants from 22 countries to more than 2,500 merchants from more than 100 countries, from nearly 300 million U.S. dollars in intended orders to over 1 billion U.S. dollars in contracted orders this year – this XCMG enterprise event has quietly become an important window for observing the growth of enterprises and the globalization process of China’s construction machinery industry, and has become a unique slice of the world’s understanding of Xuzhou, the “City of Construction Machinery in China”.
From product output to technology empowerment
At this International Customer Festival, XCMG CONNECT made its global debut.
“One App controls all equipment, one intelligent body accompanies the whole process, and one ecological base empowers the world.” – Yang Dongsheng, chairman of XCMG Group and XCMG Machinery, summed it up concisely and powerfully.
This platform connects the entire global chain of equipment, services, spare parts, and networks, and builds a full life cycle smart service system.
This step from “selling equipment” to “selling services” means that XCMG is undergoing a comprehensive transformation from an equipment manufacturer to a solution service provider.
“Chinese construction machinery products have entered the international market, bringing with them brand-new technologies.” A Brazilian dealer praised this at the XCMG International Customer Festival.
This sentence expresses the core “gold content” of this event – it is no longer a simple “signing orders and selling goods” platform, but the launch site of global cutting-edge technologies and a vane of industrial trends.
Currently, the global construction machinery industry is in a period of deep transformation toward greening and intelligence.
In the first quarter of this year, my country’s construction machinery product exports reached US$16.066 billion, a year-on-year increase of 24.3%.
In this round of industrial change, Chinese brands represented by XCMG have changed from “followers” to “parallel runners” and even “leaders”.
The data is proof.
Orders signed during this Customer Festival exceeded US$1 billion, setting another record high. The proportion of orders in the green energy and smart mining sectors increased significantly.
Situ Yi, chairman of the Australian Brooks Group, said frankly: “Power batteries, pure electric, hybrid, hydrogen energy – this is the general development trend of the industry. XCMG has been at the forefront and is setting the technology and quality benchmark for such products.”
Every International Customer Festival is a centralized release venue for XCMG’s latest technologies, and a “bright sword” for Xuzhou’s construction machinery industry cluster to export technical standards to the world.
From manufacturing base to world-class industrial cluster
Behind XCMG’s report card is a resilient industrial chain that “cannot be moved, dismantled, or crushed”.
With XCMG as the “chain master”, Xuzhou has gathered a number of world-class construction machinery companies, driving the coordinated development of thousands of local supporting companies, and the independent control rate of core components exceeds 90%.
The thickness of the industry is supported by the density of talents.
“The production site is the training site, and the learning process is the production process.” Li Panpan, a national technical expert, revealed the talent training secrets of XCMG Technician College.
More than 40% of the professional teachers in this college come from XCMG’s R&D and production lines. Students operate XCMG’s latest mainframe products and learn about the process problems on the production line.
Last year, the college served more than 40,000 people and provided more than 500 “ready-to-use” in-demand skilled talents to the industrial chain.
The profound industrial accumulation has created the unique city pride of Xuzhou people.
In May this year, during the opening performance of the “Suzhou Super League” Xuzhou team’s home game against Suqian, XCMG brought 13 models and 15 units of the same “Wandering Earth” construction machinery into the stadium.
Outside the competition venue, electric forklifts lifted up replica bronze cauldrons, and new energy excavators held high the giant VV soybean milk bottles to “clink glasses” – hard-core machinery collided with the Chu-Han culture, making the “Capital of Construction Machinery in China” blast social media.
From enterprises to cities, and from cities to provinces, a blueprint for world-class industrial clusters is accelerating.
And this blueprint is crossing mountains and seas, drawing a new scale in the coordinate system of the global construction machinery industry.
From equipment going overseas to value symbiosis
If the International Customer Day is a window to “come in”, then on the broader global stage, XCMG is completing a historic leap from “products going overseas” to “rooting in the entire chain”.
On May 20, XCMG’s complete set of road smart construction equipment was unveiled in Oman.
At the on-site observation meeting on AI-enabled asphalt pavement construction technology co-sponsored by the Ministry of Transport of Oman and Galfar Company, 7 pieces of intelligent road construction equipment including XCMG pavers and rollers completed the unmanned paving and rolling operation of a 12-meter-wide asphalt pavement at the desert highway site.
At the Las Vegas Construction Machinery Expo in March this year, XCMG launched 35 customized products for the North American market.
This critical leap from product export to localized in-depth operation reflects the profound changes in China’s equipment manufacturing from “going out” to “going in” to “going up”.
In 2025, XCMG Machinery’s revenue will exceed 100 billion yuan, reaching 100.823 billion yuan; overseas revenue will be 48.599 billion yuan, accounting for 48.2%; new energy product revenue will be 13.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23.6%.
In the first quarter of this year, XCMG Machinery’s revenue was 29.791 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.26%.
The “XCMG imprints” scattered around the world piece together a panoramic picture of China’s construction machinery deeply participating in global industrial changes.
At present, XCMG products have covered more than 190 countries and regions around the world, relying on overseas subsidiaries, authorized dealers and global service outlets to build an international operation network covering the world.
From “selling equipment” to “teaching technology”, from “product delivery” to “value symbiosis”, what XCMG brings to the world is not only hard-core equipment, but also another kind of silent and warm watch that moisturizes things.
Eight years of customer festival, eight years of butterfly changes.
Today, Xuzhou, the steel “giant ship” that carries the dream of China’s construction machinery industry, is using green as its sail and intelligence as its oar, writing the narrative of the times from “following” to “leading”, and heading towards the other side of the “world-class construction machinery industry cluster”, breaking the waves.
