According to customs statistics, the major Chinese construction equipment manufacturer exported over US$200 million worth of products to Africa in 2013. The group posted $170 million in export value in 2014, and nearly US$90 million in the first half of 2015, positioning it as the largest Chinese exporter to the market.
XCMG has established a mature marketing network and service parts system in Africa. Currently, the group has two branches in Ghana and Guinea, and 25 distribution outlets in Guinea, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and other countries. Its distribution centres in countries and regions such as Ivory Coast and Senegal are expected to start service in late 2015. A manufacturer of a wide range of models including crawler excavators, wheeled loaders and road machinery such as compactors, XCMG has 20 service spare parts centres in Africa, leaving it well-positioned to provide prompt and professional aftersales services and a complete range of spare parts services across Africa. Additionally, XCMG has set up six training centres in Africa, to offer a full range of training services for customers.
In addition to developing an optimised network of sales and service outlets, XCMG launched a ‘One Belt, One Road’ service campaign in 2015 as a response to the Chinese government's ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative. During the campaign, mostly in the 20-plus African countries under the ‘One Belt, One Road’ program, the group has conducted a field inspection of around 10,000 in-warranty products, including lifting, earth-moving, road, mining, concrete and pile-driving machinery, as well as truck-mounted cranes and heavy trucks.
The XCMG ‘One Belt, One Road’ service campaign was designed to carry out standard operating procedures in line with the following principles: offering filters for free; checking product performance and maintenance; teaching the correct methods of operation, maintenance and simple troubleshooting; asking customers about their construction projects’ purchase needs and spare parts purchase channels, and making suggestions for their improvement; and collecting feedback on the campaign and unresolved product problems. The ultimate aim was to improve XCMG's service standard.
Thanks to what the company says is its solid product quality and extensive sales network in Africa, XCMG has won a bunch of large orders including the supply of complete sets of equipment to the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway in Kenya; complete sets of machinery to Ethiopia; the order for 100m aerial platform fire trucks from Angola; and the supply of complete sets of factory equipment to Nigeria. XCMG products have found their way into numerous well-known construction companies in China and abroad including CSCEC, CRCC, CREC, CCCC, CITIC Construction, CNEC, CJIC, SINOHYDRO, CHICO, WIETC, and China Wu Yi infrastructure projects in many African countries.
