Spreading Their Wings

The construction material-lifting arena is witnessing the rise of new technologies to meet evolving requirements like a safe working environment, optimal cost management and negotiating compact workspaces.

- Mitalee Kurdekar

While the global crane market is growing steadily, the Asia Pacific market within that is growing much faster in comparison. The drivers are different, in a way. Globally, the market is driven by the ever-increasing oil and drilling industry. Given the race to control ever important oil exploration and drilling activities, both in the developed world as well as key developing economies, the demand for industrial cranes of various types has always been very healthy. This is supported by an expanding construction industry in every geography of the world. Industry trends suggest that, globally, the crane market is of the size of $ 17-18 billion with more than 25,000 units of different crane types sold, but the growth numbers are a low single digit.

In contrast, developing economies such as China and India are presently the largest markets for cranes, providing a push for the Asia Pacific markets at least until the early 2020s. Thereafter, the markets in Latin America and Africa would also join this growth story for crane products. From 2017 onwards, China’s growth story has been steered by the OBOR (One Belt, One Road) initiative, whereby many road and infrastructure projects are being envisaged and implemented by Chinese construction companies. On the other hand, the story in India too is developing well, with the Government’s focus on infrastructure development in terms of roads, railways, ports, power and communication etc., along with the implementing of projects within manufacturing, defence, aerospace and other key industries. Rising activities in the aforementioned industries means that cranes have wider applications in supporting those activities.

Commenting on the changes that are noticeable in the Indian market,