In recent years, China's laser machinery industry has developed outstanding momentum, especially the performance of exports is bright. On a selection of cross-border e-commerce platforms, the number of global buyers of Chinese branded laser machinery and equipment increased by 51.1% year-on-year in 2022, making it one of the top 10 Chinese goods loved by overseas consumers. How does China's laser machinery industry rise to the top in the competitive international market?

In the field of high-end manufacturing, many scenarios require the use of laser machinery and equipment, from aerospace equipment manufacturing, the Olympic Games iconic five rings LOGO to create, from small to photovoltaic wafer manufacturing, lithium battery pole ear welding, etc.. These areas often require higher efficiency, finer processing, and lower fault tolerance.

Data show that in recent years, China's laser machinery and equipment market has achieved more than 6 times growth, with a compound growth rate of 21.5%. Overseas market performance is particularly bright, in the traditional manufacturing industry generally under pressure against the background of the market to achieve an upturn. Guo Changcheng, executive vice president of China Machine Tool Industry Association, said, "Laser machinery and equipment has developed rapidly in recent years, with exports of full-caliber laser processing equipment reaching $1.52 billion in the first 11 months of 2022, an increase of 23.5% compared to 2021. The United States is the number one export destination country. The United States, South Korea, Russia, India, Brazil, these five countries accounted for more than 40% of our overall exports. Here laser cutting equipment still accounts for most of it."

Guo Changcheng mentioned the laser cutting machine is one of the main products of laser machinery and equipment. Compared with the traditional plasma and water cutting methods, laser cutting process high precision, smooth kerf, once formed, lower cost. Bond Laser, located in Jinan, Shandong Province, an important R&D bastion and base for laser technology in China, is a company that focuses on laser cutting machine manufacturing. Li Lei, the marketing director of this enterprise, just got the company's 2022 overseas revenue data in an interview with reporters, and he said that the achievement has cheered everyone up. Li Lei said, "In 2022, Bond's performance in the overseas market is very bright, and its revenue data I just got, which is 60% higher than 2021."

Li Lei admits that this achievement is hard-won, and the most crucial reason is that the enterprise has managed to solve the "neck" problem and realise the technical breakthrough. Li Lei said: "The outstanding achievements overseas are due to the fact that the core components and standard components of the system have been independently researched and produced, which has solved the problem of the stuck neck. From 2017, we first implemented the self-development and self-production of the laser head, and in 2018, we started to achieve the development and production of our own system; in January 2022, we have achieved the self-development and self-production of the core light source device laser. All the autonomous branding makes the equipment performance to the extreme."

Not only this enterprise, China Machine Tool Industry Association Executive Vice President Guo Changcheng said, focus on technology research and development, and to break the foreign monopoly is the critical path for the development of many Chinese enterprises in the laser machinery industry. Relying on imports to earn assembly costs, to self-development brand to go to sea, gradually China's laser machinery industries in the highly competitive international market to take a place. Guo Changcheng said: "the original we are out of reach. 10 years ago, like Germany, Japan, and Switzerland, Italy, and some Spanish enterprises, the original they basically monopolized the whole industry. Now this pattern has been completely broken. These years we have these key components, many domestic enterprises, we have solved, the level is basically similar to foreign, and some even exceed the level of foreign. We have spent ten years to take up a large piece of this market share."

How to seize a large piece of the "cake" in the competitive red sea market? Guo believes that, in addition to breaking through the technical "neck" problem, the basic space provided by the Chinese market and the complete industrial chain supply chain are also important reasons for the industry's high-quality development. Guo said: "We are still developing based on China's big market. The Chinese market provides it with a lot of room to grow, the entire industrial base is relatively good, involving the supply capacity of the upstream and downstream industry chain as well. Machine tools are becoming more and more mature, the equipment is becoming more and more mature, the cost performance is getting higher and higher, so the international competitiveness is getting stronger and stronger."

Guo Changcheng confessed that, from the perspective of the whole industry, although China's laser machinery has been in the low-end market to achieve the replacement of European and American products, but the industry to achieve sustainable, high-quality development, to work on higher power and higher precision. Guo Changcheng said: "Now this stage should be our low-end to do more, the next step may be gradually should be the direction of high-end development. One is to our current technology for research and development investment and enhance, (in addition) should have a technology development of the general direction and plan."

With the optimization of China's epidemic prevention and control policy, many companies have realized that they need to take a more proactive "go to sea" strategy and actively go overseas for offline docking. They are also confident about the market performance in 2023. Li Lei, director of marketing department of Bond Laser, said, "The global circulation will be smoother in 2023, and we believe that the path of globalization is very favorable to Chinese enterprises. We believe that in 2023, many Chinese national enterprises will be able to bring more innovative products to global users and make Made in China commendable to the world."