As Chinese foundry companies continue to work hard to improve product quality and technical content, China has gradually become one of the world's largest exporters of castings.

What is the market prospect of the foundry industry? 

With the trend of automobile weight reduction and energy saving and the continuous development of industry and manufacturing, China's casting market has grown significantly, and lower labor costs and manufacturing costs will further accelerate market growth.

Casting is the foundation of the manufacturing industry and the basic industry of the national economy. Castings account for a considerable proportion of various types of equipment such as aircraft engines, rocket engines, gas turbines, automobile engines, large light metal and ferrous metal structural equipment, and are crucial to improving the performance of the main equipment.

According to the "2021-2026 China Foundry Industry In-depth Research and Development Trend Forecast Research Report" released by China Research Institute of Puhua Industry,due to the high price of casting machinery, most companies are still developing the foundry industry in a traditional way, and there is great pressure to update advanced technology and modern machinery and equipment. 

With fierce market competition, companies with advanced technology and modern machinery and equipment will gradually eliminate companies with backward technology and equipment. After multiple rounds of survival of the fittest, the technology and equipment level of the entire industry will be improved.

The output of castings in my country far exceeds that of other countries, but the average output per unit enterprise is lower than that of developed countries. A large number of small foundries have dragged down the production capacity structure of my country's foundry industry. my country's foundry industry as a whole is large but not strong, with low industry concentration. In the future, as the supply-side structural adjustment of the foundry industry accelerates and backward production capacity is eliminated, the industry concentration will increase significantly. From the perspective of industry concentration, taking the wind power field as an example, according to statistics, in 2020, my country's casting industry CR4 was 37%, and the industry concentration was low. Among them, Riyue shares accounted for 18% of the market, ranking first.

Casting refers to the formation method of making a mold, pouring molten metal into the mold, and obtaining a metal part blank with a certain shape, size and performance after solidification.

According to the different casting metal materials, castings can be divided into cast iron parts, steel castings, non-ferrous metal parts and other alloy castings. Cast iron parts have long been dominant, accounting for 72.53% of the total castings, of which gray cast iron accounts for 41.87%, ductile iron accounts for 29.45%, and forgeable cast iron accounts for 1.21%. Cast iron parts occupy an absolute dominant position in castings.

In 2021, China's total casting output reached 54.05 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 4.0%, an average growth of 5.3% over the past two years, and the foundry industry achieved relatively stable development.

Annual output of downstream industries: 15.4 million tons of automotive castings; 5.55 million tons of internal combustion engine and agricultural machinery castings; 5.2 million tons of engineering machinery castings; 5 million tons of mining and heavy machinery castings; 8.85 million tons of cast pipes and pipe fittings; 2.6 million tons of machine tools; 2.15 million tons of rail transit castings; 2.35 million tons of power generation equipment and power castings; 350,000 tons of ship castings; 6.6 million tons of other castings.

The automotive industry is the largest user of castings. In 2021, automotive castings accounted for 28.5%. Due to the pull of exports, the output of automotive castings increased by 2.7% year-on-year; the demand for castings in machine tools, general machinery and emerging industries such as robots increased.

During the period of 2014-2021, ductile iron had the largest increase in share, accounting for 29.5% in 2021, an increase of 2.7 percentage points from 2014, and the output increased from 12.4 million tons to 15.95 million tons, mainly due to the good casting performance of ductile iron, relatively low cost, and the continuous expansion of its application areas, which can be used in internal combustion engines, agricultural machinery, wind power castings, cast pipes and pipe fittings. 

Affected by the strong development of the new energy vehicle industry and the trend of lightweight development of automobiles, the output share of aluminum (magnesium) alloys in 2021 increased by 0.7% to 13.3% compared with 2014, with an output of 7.2 million tons.

As Chinese foundry companies continue to work hard to improve product quality and technical content, China has gradually become one of the world's largest exporters of castings. In 2020, China exported 1.649 million tons of castings, down 30,600 tons from 2019; imports were 17,600 tons, down 3,900 tons from 2019. In 2021, China exported 1.608 million tons of castings and imported 16,500 tons.

Foundry Industry Prospects Analysis Digital Transformation and Upgrading 

Competition in the domestic high-end market is becoming increasingly international. Although my country's casting output has ranked first in the world for many years, my country's casting exports are still dominated by low-end and medium-end products. For some special high-end products, my country currently imports mainly. 

In the future, with the improvement of my country's casting technology level, international competition in the high-end casting market will become increasingly fierce. While establishing their brands, large-scale enterprises will focus more on the international market.

As the main direction of the future development model of industry, the industrial chain development model is also the key development direction of the foundry industry in the future. With the transformation and upgrading of the traditional foundry industry, the continuous advancement of intelligent manufacturing and green casting, foundry companies have gradually explored a diversified foundry industry chain, including high-end equipment manufacturing, intelligent equipment manufacturing, and intelligent casting services.

Driven by the vast market demand, additive manufacturing technology is also in a process of sustained and rapid development. New application materials continue to emerge, and the application field is gradually expanding. The development of industrial-grade and large-scale additive manufacturing equipment will become a key development direction. At present, additive manufacturing technology has formed a relatively complete technical system, the application scenarios and scope are constantly expanding, the industrial chain is initially formed, and the additive manufacturing industry is entering an accelerated growth period.

The traditional domestic casting production process belongs to a non-digital simulation process mode, and the production process and casting result prediction are highly dependent on the personal experience and ability of the technician. Other industrial product manufacturing industries (automobiles, aerospace, shipbuilding, machining, etc.) have gradually completed the full digital upgrade of design and manufacturing.

As a supporting foundry industry, it is in urgent need of completing the digital production process under competition, and realizing the market requirements of supporting production and improved casting precision, while completing the automation transformation to solve the problems of personnel and efficiency. In this context, 3D sand mold printing equipment has become a powerful tool for rapidly improving the traditional gravity casting industry. Traditional casting companies can use 3D sand mold printing equipment to complete the casting process upgrade process, digitally connect with customers' digital workpiece design processes, and realize a fully digital casting process.

During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, in order to meet the needs of the host market, the material structure of castings in my country will change further. Among cast iron products, the proportion of high-performance ductile iron and vermicular iron castings has further increased; in the context of lightweight development trends and the rapid development of new energy vehicles and the accelerated construction of new 5G communication base stations, some traditional black castings will be replaced by light alloy castings, and the application of light alloys such as aluminum and magnesium will be further expanded, and their share in the casting market will continue to grow.