Global and China Hydraulic Industry Report, 2021-2026

Hydraulic components are key parts for mobile machineries including construction machinery, agricultural and forestry machinery, material handling equipment and commercial vehicle. The global construction machinery industry has regained growth since 2015. The rapid urbanization of the emerging markets and the infrastructure improvement in rich world have driven up the demand for mobile machineries and also given a big boost to the global hydraulic and pneumatic power machinery and component manufacturing industry. In 2020, the global hydraulic parts market was worth EUR32.9 billion, sustaining AAGR of 3.9% from 2016 to 2020. In future, the global market will show a fluctuant uptrend up to 2026 affected by the prosperity of the construction machinery industry, expectedly being valued at EUR36.1 billion in 2026, with CAGR of 1.6% during the period.

The scale of the hydraulic power machinery and parts manufacturing industry hinges on a country’s economic strength and level of industrialization. The US, China, Germany, Japan and Italy are the top five consumers of hydraulic power machineries and components in the world. As the world's second largest economy and the biggest manufacturing power, China has a hydraulic power machinery and parts manufacturing industry taking up 30.6% of the global market by scale, just a bit lower than the US (32%), and far higher than other developed countries like Japan and Germany.

Players at the upstream end of the hydraulic parts industry chain are suppliers of raw materials, precision castings and accessories including steel, pump/valve castings, seals and auxiliary materials; the midstream provides hydraulic parts; the wide range of downstream applications covers construction machinery, aviation & aerospace, metallurgical machinery, ship and offshore engineering, and new energy. In China’s case, among the downstream application sectors, construction machinery accounted for 44% in 2020, higher than the rest. 

American and Japanese brands prevail in the global hydraulic market. It is too hard to shake up multinationals typically like Parker Hannifin, Eaton Vickers, Bosch Rexroth and Kawasaki Heavy Industries as they have great competitive edges in history, technology and scale. As well as the full range of hydraulic products, these world-renowned giants also make extensive deployments in downstream application fields for an extension in the industry chain. The US-based Parker Hannifin and Eaton, Germany’s Bosch Rexroth, and Japan’s KYB and Kawasaki Heavy Industries all produce high-value hydraulic parts largely used in construction machinery, aviation & aerospace and industry among others. Nabtesco which concentrates on producing speed reducers dabble in hydraulic motors as well.

In 2001, the merger of Mannesmann Rexroth AG and Bosch Automation Technology formed Bosch Rexroth AG, a global leading specialist in drive and control technologies. With services covering almost all industrial fields, Bosch Rexroth provides hydraulic products led by industrial and mobile machinery hydraulic parts. Wherein, the industrial hydraulic products are divided into 12 categories such as pumps, motors, cylinders, filters, and valves; the mobile machinery hydraulic products are mainly in 9 categories including pumps, motors, driving control devices, and reducers.

Parker Hannifin, founded in 1917, provides a wide range of services and precise solutions for drive control, industry and aviation markets. Its financial reports show that the company was unaffected by the COVID-19 epidemic from July 2019 to June 2020, during which it earned USD13.7 billion, down 4.36% on an annualized basis.

Eaton, an American company founded in 1911, offers the world’s leading hydraulic components, systems and services, involving pumps, valves, cylinders, motors and hydraulic power units. According to its financial reports, Eaton recorded USD17.86 billion in revenue in 2020, a year-on-year drop of 16.51%. In 2020, its hydraulic business was acquired by Danfoss.

China’s hydraulic industry starts late but grows at a fast pace. As of October 2021, there have been more than 1,000 hydraulic parts manufacturers included in the statistics of the National Bureau of Statistics. Large numbers of local hydraulic companies, of which the overwhelming majority are small with low capacity and few boast high-end products and high level of technical expertise, mean a low industry concentration and overall poor competitiveness. In recent years, hydraulic leaders in China invested in different segments with more money and technologies, having built up their own competitive advantages such as mature OEM supporting, stable customer base and technical reserves and narrowed their gap with well-known foreign companies. Yet they as a whole still fall short of surging domestic demand.

Jiangsu Hengli Hydraulic Co., Ltd., established in June 2005, is a specialist manufacturer of hydraulic components and systems such as high-pressure cylinders, high-pressure plunger pumps, hydraulic multi-port valves, industrial valves, hydraulic systems, hydraulic test benches and high-precision hydraulic castings, serving the world’s top 500 and renowned OEM customers like Caterpillar, Kobelco, Sany, XCMG, Liugong, China Railway Engineering Equipment Group, and China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Corporation. Hengli Hydraulic invests and constructs production bases of high-pressure precise hydraulic castings, hydraulic valves and pumps, and sets up companies in Chicago and Tokyo, while making expansion and deployments in overseas markets by acquiring Germany’s HAWE Inline Hydraulik GmbH and other businesses. Hengli Hydraulic has been an influential provider of high-end complete hydraulic equipment and hydraulic solutions in China.   

Yantai Eddie Precision Machinery Co., Ltd., found in August 2003, specializes in researching hydraulic technologies and developing, producing and selling hydraulic products. Main products are hydraulic breaking attachments (e.g., hydraulic breaker, quick connector, vibratory rammer, hydraulic shear, hydraulic tong, stone grabber and wood grabber), and hydraulic parts (e.g., hydraulic pump, hydraulic motor and multi-port control valve). As one of the few hydraulic exporters in China, Eddie Precision sells products to more than 60 countries and regions, expanding its brand reach.

Global and China Hydraulic Industry Report, 2021-2026 highlights the following:

• Hydraulic products (definition and classification, technology trends, etc.);
• Global hydraulic industry (market size, regional structure, competitive pattern, etc.);
• Chinese hydraulic industry (policies, status quo, existing problems, competitive pattern, etc.);
• Chinese hydraulic parts industry (production, sales, import and export, and prices), and construction machinery hydraulic parts market (status quo, technology trends, etc.);
• Development of China’s hydraulic cylinder, hydraulic pump/valve and hydraulic motor markets;
• 7 global and 21 Chinese hydraulic companies (operation, products, technology, development trends, etc.).