Sino-American Zhejiang Maximal Forklift Co., Ltd. (Maximal for short), established in 2006, spent only four months from the product development to the roll-off of the first set of 3-ton internal combustion forklift. Since then, Maximal experienced a fast and steady growth in the forklift field at home and abroad. In October, 2009, Maximal showed two models of JUNLI-MAXIMAL omni-directional forklift trucks at the CeMAT Asia; in 2010, Maximal was ranked to be China Top 10 forklift manufacturers for the first time; in 2011, Maximal was titled as National Key High-Tech Enterprise, and in 2012 Maximal became one of the three largest forklift export enterprises in domestic China. From sales amount of no more than 1000 sets at the very beginning of establishment to the breakthrough in terms of exporting 10,000 sets after six years’ development, Maximal created another new record in forklift industry in China. How can this company keep their rapid growth rate against the background of financial crisis and economic recession in the global world? With the inquiry on the magic codes of Maximal to seize the chance in such a challenging situation, Chinaforklift.com (www.chinaforklift.com, English version: www.forkliftnet.com) conducted a telephone interview to Su Jun, the General Manger of Maximal Forklift Export & Import Co., Ltd.

During the interview, General Manager Su expressed his view on the breakthrough of Maximal exporting more than 10,000 sets of forklifts that this was not only a symbol of continuous improvement on comprehensive progress of Maximal to create such a record, but also the plants of the efforts taken by all of our staff in development, production and sales departments.

“Heavy-duty forklifts occupied more than 20% among the forklift models for export, especially the 12-32 ton forklifts that were developed and manufactured in the recent two years and gained outstanding sales achievements in exporting on overseas market. The product significance and quality of our forklifts have won the high praises from the customers, and we have realized in exporting 30-ton forklifts,” said General Manager Su. This has dramatically reflected the strength of Maximal in designing and developing large-tonnage forklifts. With a total investment of RMB 420 million Yuan and production area of 130,000 square meters, Maximal took material handling and loading products as the dominant products, reaching the goal of annually producing 30000 sets of forklifts that were worth of 2.5 billion Yuan, laying sound foundation for the further development of Maximal forklifts in the future. 

As for the competition on overseas market, General Manager Su pointed out that along with the fiercer and fiercer competition among the abroad enterprises, the form and content of competition also changed. In the past, the direct competitors were mainly the domestic enterprises as there were obvious advantages in terms of price when compared with foreign brands, while the homogenization of products was also too serious. However, in recent years, foreign forklift manufacturing companies entered Chinese market to conduct the final assembly process, and then exported abroad from China. This would propel the rapid development of industrial forklift industry in China, while weakened the price advantages of Chinese forklift brands on overseas market.

“We have to make more innovations on developing new products and more improvements on out existing forklifts,” said General Manager Su, “relying on the advantages of forklift price can not meet the competitive demands of forklift overseas market any more, we have to do more in terms of brand construction, production quality and after sales service, holding more advanced concepts and scientific methods to provide the customers with the best material handling equipment solutions so as to better fuse into the international market.”

When talking about the core competition of Maximal on the international market, General Manager Su told Chinaforklift.com that Maximal invested heavily on technological enhancement. Early in 2006, one of the departments Maximal pioneered to firstly establish was Maximal Development & Research Center. Since then, Maximal continued to invest on the technological development. In the past five years, Maximal annually put 5 to 12 million Yuan on average, and in 2012 Maximal invested 25 million Yuan on new product development and the technological cooperation in wider areas with military research institutes.