The largest Chinese-German transaction to date, the Sany-Putzmeister merger, is expected to throw up a new global leader for concrete pumps, thereby changing market trends. Over the past six months, strong rumours regarding Schwing Stetter were doing the rounds and then viola... Sany gobbles up Putzmeister! EQUIPMENT INDIA spoke to the officials of Schwing Stetter India, who categorically denied any such move.    

However, it is a known fact Chinese companies are on the prowl, globally. With foreign exchange reserves of over $3.2 trillion, the Chinese need to urgently replace dependence on American economy with more vibrant economic growth coming from other countries like India. And Schwing Stetter India is a prime gem in Schwing?s global tiara from the growth perspective. Interestingly, in January 2009, Sany Heavy Industry had signed a contract to build a Research and Development facility linked to a production facility near Cologne, Germany, with a total investment of EUR 100 million. This was the largest investment made by any Chinese company in Europe. LiuGong?s acquisition of HSW represents a smart strategic step up for the company, which has a publically stated goal of becoming one of the top ten construction equipment manufacturers by 2015. Zoomlion had acquired Cifa sometime earlier, and is expected to increase its operation in India.More takeovers and geography-specific mergers are on the cards, as per our sources.

And what of the SRK factor? If one were to equate filmstars to equipment, backhoes could be well represented by Shahrukh Khan or as he is popularly known, SRK. Having a large following is not the only similarity; the declining graph of their popularity is another.Continuing our commitment to bringing out the changing trends in the CE industry, our cover story on backhoe loaders seeks the interesting shift already visible in the market.As per Off-Highway Research projections, crawler excavators will witness the highest growth rate amongst construction equipment, and may well catch up with backhoe loaders with annual sales of 40,000 units in 2016.As per data collected by EQUIPMENT INDIA, backhoe loaders will remain the most popular type of equipment sold in the country for some time more, but already a change in the structure of demand is quite visible.Its sales have been growing rapidly since 2000 and the market is said to have exceeded 33,000 units in 2011. While it will continue to remain the most popular equipment type amongst plant hirers and small contractors on account of its versatility and mobility, it may increasingly be replaced by more efficient and productive machines, such as crawler excavators and wheeled loaders on large infrastructure projects.Therefore, the future growth rate of the backhoe loader industry could decline; then again, it may well see increasing application opportunities in rural areas which will continue to sustain its strong market presence.So, it is not a dead end yet.