Chinese wind turbine market
Griffith, president and CEO of Timken Company, said the Chinese wind turbine market is the fastest growing market for the application of Timken’s industrial bearings. In a brief interview Thursday, Griffith said the company’s annual sales in China were around 50 million. And it will double in 2011.
The CEO admitted that for a company with expected sales of around $4 billion this year, its sales in China were relatively small. But he trusted China’s wind power industry. He said that Asia accounted for 12% of the total share of global sales, with the largest share coming from China.
The Chinese government is promoting clean energy to replace coal, hoping that wind power capacity can reach 100 GW by 2020. This figure is more than eight times that of 2008. Chinese companies dominate this market. Fierce competition between Chinese companies and foreign companies pushes down the price of wind turbines.
Timken precision bearings are manufactured to keep heavy equipment running smoothly, such as gear systems used in high-speed rotation for landing aircraft. And the frequently replaceable bearing system is designed to reduce pressure; otherwise the machine will be destroyed. Timken benefited greatly from the Chinese government’s stimulus policies and heavy investments in infrastructure. In the last annual report of this company, Griffith said that “the Chinese market was open for us”.
However, counterfeit bearings from China are also growing rapidly. The World Bearing Association, which is partially funded by the Timken Company and run by Griffith, revealed a report in August that more than a million counterfeit industrial bearings were found in two provinces in China.
Griffith also said that Chinese manufacturers of heavy equipment (such as mining trucks) have begun to export products. And Timken is ready to respond to this trend. For example, the company has set up an office in Jakarta because Indonesians are buying Chinese equipment whose bearings will eventually need to be replaced.
Timken has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in China. He established a joint venture in Xiangtan City (Hunan Province), which improved its ability to produce bearings for large wind turbines.