Casting industry as an indispensable and important part of the development of equipment manufacturing industry, machine tools, automobiles, shipbuilding and aerospace and other fields have a wide range of applications.
Casting is a relatively early mastery of mankind of a metal hot process, has a history of about 6000 years. China about 1700 BC ~ 1000 years ago between has entered the heyday of bronze castings, the process has reached a fairly high level. Casting is the liquid metal poured into the casting cavity with the shape of the part, to be cooled and solidified to obtain the part or blank method. The cast material is mostly solid but heated to liquid metal (example: copper, iron, aluminum, tin, lead, etc.), while the casting mold material can be sand, metal or even ceramic. Depending on the requirements, the methods used may vary.
The products of the casting industry are widely used in various fields, including automobile manufacturing, machinery manufacturing, aerospace, electronic information and construction building materials. In the field of automobile manufacturing, with the rapid development of new energy vehicles, the demand for lightweight, high-strength castings has risen sharply. In the field of machinery manufacturing, the casting industry provides a large number of key parts and components for various machinery and equipment, and with the development of machinery manufacturing to the direction of high-end and intelligent, the precision, strength and reliability of castings are constantly improving. In the field of aerospace, the casting industry plays a vital role, many key components need to be manufactured through the casting process.
Casting industry market development status and enterprise competition pattern analysis
The global casting industry market size continues to grow, mainly due to the accelerated industrialization of emerging economies and the transformation and upgrading needs of the traditional manufacturing industry. According to the International Foundry Association, the total output value of the global foundry industry has exceeded 500 billion U.S. dollars, with an average annual growth rate of about 5%.
China’s foundry industry has shown steady growth. 2025, China’s foundry industry gross output value is expected to reach 300 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of about 6%. This growth is mainly due to the continued recovery of the domestic manufacturing industry and the increased demand for high-end castings.In 2023, China’s casting production reached 51.9 million tons, of which 20.9 million tons of grey cast iron castings were produced, and 15.05 million tons of ductile cast iron were produced. Domestic market consumption of 46.79 million tons, of which the demand for casting parts in the automotive field scale of 15.2 million tons, cast pipe and pipe fittings demand 8.1 million tons. Casting parts market size reached 1052.8 billion yuan.
China’s casting industry has a large number of enterprises, and mainly small and medium-sized enterprises, resulting in low industry concentration. According to the China Foundry Association released the “foundry industry,” the 14th Five-Year “Development Plan”, China’s existing foundry plant has more than 20,000, generally characterized by small and many. In recent years, with the domestic foundry market tends to stabilize and the national environmental protection supervision efforts to increase, a considerable number of poor production equipment, inefficient and high emissions of small-scale foundry enterprises gradually lost the space to survive, the number of enterprises has been reduced, and the average size of the increase.
According to the “2024-2029 Analysis Report on the Current Situation and Future Development Trends of the Casting Industry” released by CRRP Industrial Research Institute:
The foundry industry in emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil has been developing rapidly, especially China’s casting output has ranked first in the world for 22 consecutive years. From the domestic point of view, casting enterprises are distributed in various regions, but some regions are more centralized in the development of casting industry due to industrial foundation, resource endowment and other factors.
The research and development and application of new alloy materials continue to make breakthroughs, such as high-strength, corrosion-resistant aluminum alloys, magnesium alloys and titanium alloys and other materials, due to their excellent performance, are widely used in aerospace, automobile manufacturing and electronic information and other fields. Advanced process technologies such as precision casting, pressure casting and 3D printing have been widely used. These technologies not only improve the performance and quality of castings, but also provide new solutions for product lightweighting and functionalization. The emergence of intelligent casting production lines and automated casting equipment has further improved production efficiency and product quality, and reduced production costs and labor intensity.
The instability of raw material prices on the production and operation of foundry enterprises has brought some pressure. With the development of the economy and demographic changes, labor costs continue to rise, which has an impact on the profitability of foundry enterprises. National requirements for environmental protection to improve the casting enterprises need to invest more money for environmental protection governance and energy saving and emission reduction. The uncertainty of international trade friction has an impact on the export business of some enterprises.
Casting industry market future development direction and trend forecast
Casting industry will further strengthen technological innovation, improve product quality and production efficiency, expanding market applications. With the improvement of national requirements for environmental protection, “green casting” will become one of the important goals pursued by enterprises in the industry. Industry concentration will continue to improve, towards scale, intensive direction.
In summary, the casting industry as an important part of the equipment manufacturing industry, has a broad market outlook and development space. However, in the face of fierce market competition and changing market demand, casting enterprises need to continuously strengthen technological innovation and product development capabilities, improve product quality and production efficiency, in order to adapt to market changes and development trends.
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