Tower Tower Market 2025 Off to a Cold Start with Sharp Sales Decline

The tower crane industry in 2025 suffered a “cold wave” at the beginning of the new year. According to the latest statistics, January 2025 month sales of various types of tower cranes 301 units, down 57.8% year-on-year, of which the domestic sales of 189 units, down 68.3% year-on-year; exports 112 units, down 4.27% year-on-year. This data is like a hammer, so that the whole tower crane industry practitioners feel the unprecedented pressure.

Looking back, the tower crane market in the infrastructure boom and real estate boom period, can be described as unlimited scenery. In 2020, the peak of the industry, the tower crane annual sales volume of more than 50,000 sets, the average monthly sales of more than four thousand sets. However, today's tower crane sales have plummeted, behind what is the reason?

From the short-term factors, the Spring Festival holiday in January 2025 tower crane sales have a direct impact. During the Spring Festival holiday, companies stopped work and production, and construction sites were basically at a standstill. The long holiday period resulted in sales of only 301 units in January. Comparing with February 2024 (also including Chinese New Year holiday), it is the lowest month of tower crane sales in 2024, with only 433 units. It can be assumed that the following months in 2025 will see a small increase in tower crane sales compared to January.

However, in the long run, the continued downturn in the real estate market is the biggest “culprit” for the plunge in tower crane sales. According to the National Bureau of Statistics data, in 2024 the national real estate development investment 100280 billion yuan, down 10.6% from the previous year; of which, residential investment 7604 billion yuan, down 10.5%. 2024, real estate development enterprises housing construction area 733247 million square meters, down 12.7% from the previous year. Among them, residential construction area was 5133.3 million square meters, down 13.1%. The area of new housing construction was 738.93 million square meters, down 23.0%. Among them, the area of new housing construction was 536.6 million square meters, down 23.0%. This trend has not improved significantly into 2025. The downturn in the real estate market has directly led to the lack of tower crane starts, and the demand for tower cranes by construction companies has plummeted. After all, with fewer houses being built, tower cranes will naturally not come in handy. At the same time, due to the decline in newborns year by year, the society into the aging and other demographic changes, the future of real estate projects will be gradually from the traditional real estate development projects to the transformation of urban villages and dilapidated buildings, which will make the real estate projects on the demand for tower crane to further reduce the degree. XCMG Group Xuzhou Construction Machinery Engineering Machinery Co., Ltd. deputy general manager, general manager of the marketing company Gong Yucheng said in the industry forum: “From the industry itself, we are deeply related to real estate, and real estate development, the long-term mainly depends on the population. At present, China is gradually entering a deeply aging society, and the lower birth rate is accelerating the process of social aging. From an objective point of view, the tower crane industry in 2025 will continue the winter state of 2024, there will not be a large rebound.”

In addition, the market retains a serious surplus is also an important reason for the decline in tower crane sales. When the market was hot in the past, a large number of companies blindly expanding production capacity, resulting in tower crane overproduction and influx of the market. 2020 - 2024 this five-year period, the total sales of tower crane has reached 141,000 units, and this is almost China's current tower crane market demand. According to the data released by the China Construction Machinery Industry Association, as of the end of 2023, China's main construction machinery products retained 8.62 million - 9.34 million units, of which 306,000 - 331,000 tower cranes. Compared with tower cranes within five years, the number of tower cranes outside five years is even larger, almost 17 to 200,000 units. A large number of idle tower crane, press the enterprise breathless, in order to compete for the limited market share, the manufacturer enterprises have to reduce the price of sales, and some of the leaser enterprises, often choose to take desperate measures to survive. Shaanxi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd. vice chairman Chai Zhaoyi said: “an industry to healthy development, equipment utilization rate should be maintained at least 66% above, there will be sufficient development momentum, which leads to the future at least another 60,000 tower crane eliminated, the whole industry will enter the road of healthy development.” The future of the tower industry will experience a hard landing, a large number of companies will be forced to exit, until the market retention returns to a reasonable range.