Orders Booked Through Q4! Domestic Forklifts See Global Sales Boom

en.Wedoany.com Reported - You may rarely notice forklifts, but today they are transitioning from fuel-powered to electric, and from simple material handling to autonomous perception and intelligent decision-making.

From January to July this year, cumulative national forklift sales reached 1.0098 million units, a year-on-year increase of 17.7%; domestic sales totaled 629,000 units, up 15.3% year-on-year; exports exceeded 380,000 units, up 22% year-on-year.

Electric Forklift Penetration Rate

Continues to Climb

At the warehouse of an automotive logistics company in Jiading, Shanghai, forklifts are constantly shuttling back and forth. Since the beginning of this year, shipments of auto parts have continued to increase, with the daily number of heavy trucks transported rising from 160 to 200, driving up the demand for forklifts. Considering factors such as operating costs, the company has focused on electric forklifts for its new purchases.

The head of the forklift department at a logistics company noted that the company has newly purchased over 100 forklifts this year, with electric models accounting for nearly 100% of the total. A fuel-powered forklift costs no less than 100 yuan per day in fuel, while an electric forklift costs about 30 yuan per day in electricity.

Shang Jian, senior analyst in the machinery industry at Donghai Securities, believes that China's forklift electrification has already reached a relatively high penetration stage and holds a distinct advantage in the global industrial chain. In the next phase, growth in electric forklifts will extend from small warehouse forklifts further into medium- and large-tonnage counterbalance forklifts, port forklifts, and heavy-duty forklifts.

One Forklift Rolled Off the Line Every 2 Minutes

Overseas Orders Remain Red-Hot

In Zhejiang, orders at some forklift companies are already booked through the fourth quarter of this year.

On the production line for small electric pallet trucks at one forklift company, a forklift rolls off the line every two minutes on average, and about 90% of the products from this line are sold overseas, covering nearly 100 countries and regions.

At the shipping area of another Zhejiang-based forklift company, 80 containers with nearly 400 forklifts are awaiting shipment to the port in a single day. By the end of August, shipment volumes are expected to increase further, reaching 100 containers per day.

Forklifts Equipped with

"Eyes" and "Brains"

At the pilot workshop of a forklift company in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, a forklift robot is operating autonomously. It is equipped with 9 cameras across its body, enabling it to independently identify obstacles and automatically plan routes to complete material handling. In the pilot workshop, several other forklift robots are also equipped with 3D LiDAR, multi-camera depth vision systems, and cloud-edge collaborative industrial large models.

In another scenario at the same company, an embodied arm-type robot developed specifically for high-altitude, high-risk warehouse scenarios can perform picking operations on racks up to 10 meters high, with remote control and autonomous grasping capabilities.

Driverless forklifts are entering more factories. At the digital smart factory of a forklift company in Anji, Zhejiang, more than 150 driverless forklifts are operating collaboratively. From receiving, warehousing, and material picking to finished product loading and unloading, the entire process achieves unmanned collaboration.

According to forecasts, driven by large-scale manufacturing and the localization of the supply chain, the average price of a single driverless forklift will decline from 220,000 yuan in 2024 to 180,000 yuan by 2027, while the market size will grow from 5.15 billion yuan in 2024 to exceed 13.3 billion yuan by 2027, representing a compound annual growth rate of 37.4%.