On April 7, 2025, Bauma 2025, which is known as the “Olympics of the construction machinery industry”, will be grandly opened. The world’s largest industry exhibition, with a total indoor and outdoor exhibition area of 614,000 square meters, will attract 3,200 exhibitors from 60 countries and nearly 500,000 professional visitors.
From small equipment to mining giants, from aerial work platforms to future concept models, the exhibits covered the whole industry chain, focusing more on the innovative breakthroughs in intelligent, green, and automation technologies. The Chinese army, represented by XCMG, Sany, Zoomlion, LiuGong, and other enterprises, presented electrified equipment and intelligent solutions, becoming one of the focuses of the exhibition.
The “three axes” of enterprise publicity and differentiated narrative
On the exhibition site, enterprise publicity strategies showed a high degree of convergence: booth area competition, new product releases, electrification, and intelligent innovations etc. constitute the core of enterprise publicity. However, the observation of First Construction Machinery takes a unique approach, proposing the idea of Chinese media standing in Munich to look at China, and taking you into Bauma 2025 with a different perspective.
Starting from the big one, the thinking behind the absence of the giants
Among the “giants” of Bauma 2025, Liebherr 9400 mining excavator, Komatsu PC7000-11E, Liebherr LG1800 crawler cranes, and other super equipment occupy the C position, showing the dominance of European and American companies in the field of super-large equipment.
Liebherr mining trucks
Liebherr All-Terrain Cranes
Komatsu PC7000-11E Excavator
Liebherr mining excavators
On the contrary, although Chinese enterprises had collectively displayed a series of super-large equipment at Bauma China 2024, which made people in China excited, only a series of small and medium-sized equipment was displayed at the exhibition. This contrast raises the question: Why is China’s “big guy” absent from Munich?
Reasons:
Demand-oriented: large equipment is mostly customized order production, domestic large equipment in the European market has not recently received orders, companies are unwilling to bear the high cost of transportation and display.
Brand trust: European and American customers of Liebherr, Caterpillar, and other brands of technical precision are more recognized. China’s products still need to focus on small and medium-sized equipment through the accumulation of word-of-mouth, to get a breakthrough in the large-scale equipment.
Application scenarios differences: Such as 1,000-ton all-terrain cranes mainly serve China’s wind power market, Europe’s onshore wind power stand-alone capacity is small, and the demand is limited.
Technical maturity: some domestic large-scale equipment in the stability of the hydraulic system, intelligent integration, and other details with the top brands still have a gap; these gaps still need to continue to work hard to catch up with Chinese companies.
Chinese wisdom on the show floor: pragmatic strategy and differentiation
Although they did not bring the “beast”, the booths of Chinese enterprises were full of ingenuity. Electrification army became the biggest highlight: LiuGong displayed the world’s first 24-ton electric grader 4280DE, XCMG launched XC968-EV loader, Sany SY19E excavator with “zero emission, low noise” to meet the European environmental protection regulations, while China’s electric loader market penetration rate of more than 20% of the experience, and more to become the bottom of the technology export. The experience of China’s electric loader market penetration rate has exceeded 20%, which has become the backbone of technology export.
LiuGong exhibits the world’s first 24-ton electric grader 4280DE
XCMG Launches XC968-EV Loader
Another breakthrough point is the aerial working platform: Zoomlion’s 72-meter straight-boom equipment and XCMG’s 48-meter curved-boom platform hit the demand for updating old equipment in Europe by virtue of their cost-effectiveness and intelligence.
Compared with the hydrogen energy concept promoted by some enterprises, Chinese exhibitors demonstrated their precise insight into the European market with the strategy of “mature electrification + scene adaptation”.
The big market for small equipment: the inspiration of the invisible champion
At the show, Bobcat illustrated the business logic of “small is big” with its “small equipment matrix” consisting of skid steer loaders, mini excavators, forklifts, telescopic forklifts, etc. –Its sales in 2023 exceeded 7.4 billion U.S. dollars, among the top ten global construction machinery companies.
In recent years, Chinese enterprises have continued to make efforts in this field, and this exhibition, Shanhe Intelligent micro-excavation, Leiwo FL918 small loader, with flexibility and low maintenance costs, aims to attract European lessors.
Global infrastructure refinement, urbanization, and maintenance demand growth promote the small equipment market size to continue rising. If Chinese companies can continue to innovate in compact design, multifunctional attributes, and electric range, they are expected to replicate the successful path of Bobcat and realize a brand leap in the “small and beautiful” track.
