Forklifts first appeared in the world between 1914 and 1915 and began to be sold in the 1930s. In 1971, the global annual production of forklifts was approximately 200,000 units, and in 2006, it was about 840,000 units. China's forklift industry began in the late 1950s, when it mainly imitated products from the former Soviet Union. From the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, the entire industry organized two joint designs successively. Subsequently, various forklift manufacturers successively introduced advanced foreign technologies. For instance, Beijing Forklift General Factory has introduced the 1-5t internal combustion balanced forklift technology from Mitsubishi of Japan, while Dalian Forklift General Factory has adopted the 10-40t internal combustion balanced forklift and container forklift technology from Mitsubishi of Japan. Tianjin Forklift General Factory has introduced 1.25 to 6.3t internal combustion forklift technology from the Bulgarian Balkan Automobile Company. Hangzhou Forklift General Factory has introduced the hydrostatic drive forklift, off-road forklift and electric forklift technologies of O&K Company from West Germany. Hefei Forklift General Factory and Baoji Forklift Company have introduced the 1-10T forklift technology from TCM Co., Ltd. of Japan. Hunan Forklift Company has introduced the internal combustion explosion-proof device technology of the British Priban Machinery Company. Since the 1990s, some leading enterprises have been actively updating and serializing their products on the basis of digesting and absorbing the introduced technologies. Therefore, at present, the technical levels of second-hand forklifts in China vary greatly. Among them, electric forklifts are constrained by the backwardness of basic technology, and there is a significant gap in their overall level compared with the world's advanced level. Whether Chinese forklifts can compete in the international market and remain invincible in the competition with the world's leading enterprises will depend on the improvement of the overall technical level of forklifts.
In recent years, everyone has been saying that the forklift industry in China is booming. This is not only reflected in the rapid growth of the domestic market, but also in the rapid growth of export business, which is one of the proofs of the vigorous development trend of the industry. Meanwhile, in the first half of 2007, the main destinations for China's forklift exports were the markets of major mechanical manufacturing countries such as the United States, Germany, France, Russia and Italy. On the one hand, it reflects the improvement of the quality level of domestic forklifts, which have been recognized by users in mature global markets. On the other hand, it indicates that domestic forklifts, with their favorable cost-performance ratio, have already demonstrated high market competitiveness in international competition. However, while the export volume is increasing, it will also bring about some new problems, such as the issue of adapting to local market access standards, the issue of intellectual property protection, and the issue of avoiding anti-dumping investigations, etc. All these are worthy of in-depth consideration by the Chinese forklift industry.
From 1993 to 2000, the output of forklifts in China hovered between 15,000 and 20,000 units. After 2000, the company developed rapidly, and its production and sales volume exceeded 100,000 units in 2006. In recent years, the sales volume of forklifts in China has been growing at an average annual rate of over 30%. In 2006, the domestic forklift market sales volume surpassed that of Japan, making it the second largest sales market in the world after the United States. Anhui Forklift Group Corporation is the manufacturer of the "Heli" brand. In 2005, its sales revenue was 288 million US dollars, ranking 13th in the world. In 2006, its sales revenue reached 681 million US dollars, ranking 10th in the world. Zhejiang Hangcha Construction Machinery Co., Ltd. and Dalian Forklift Co., Ltd. both entered the top 20 in the world in 2005 and 2006, ranking 16th and 20th respectively.
In China, according to the statistics of the Motor Industrial Vehicles Branch of the China Construction Machinery Association, the top six enterprises in terms of sales volume in the first half of 2007 were: Anhui Forklift Group Corporation (including TCM), Zhejiang Hangcha Construction Machinery Co., LTD., Linde (China) Forklift Co., LTD., Taifu Machinery Equipment (Qingdao) Co., LTD., Beijing Hyundai Jingcheng Construction Machinery Co., LTD., Dalian Forklift Co., LTD.
According to statistics, there are currently 110 domestic forklift mass production enterprises of various types, among which 20 are foreign-funded enterprises (joint ventures or wholly foreign-owned enterprises). Multinational forklift giants such as Linde, Jungheinrich, OM, Toyota and Hyundai have all settled in China.
