Increasing mining activities worldwide is expected to boost the global mining equipment market over the forecast period. Mining activities are especially rising in Asia Pacific Countries such as Australia, India and China. Planned iron ore extraction projects in Russia, Brazil and Africa are expected to drive the mining equipment market in this region over the forecast period. Water shortage and harsh working conditions in mining locations are also projected to drive the global mining equipment market growth. On account of different rock characteristics in various regions, it requires robust equipment for drilling and extraction activities. Growing demand for mineralized food due to increasing population and health consciousness, agricultural sector require high yield fertilizers to increase mineral content in crops which drives the global mining equipment market growth. However, security and safety issues regarding heavy mining equipment usage is expected to hinder the mining equipment market over the next eight years. Mishandling of mining equipment such as loaders, crushers, earth movers and drillers is anticipated to have negative impact on the mining equipment market. Mining activities may have adverse effects on environment by soil erosion, toxic contaminants, land sliding, and biodiversity loss. Although mining activities are rising due to growing demand for metals, minerals, ores, energy resources and rocks. Different regions are distributed as per the diversity in mining ores such as Asia has coal and iron ore rich, Africa has gold rich mines and Australia has Uranium rich mines. On the basis of ore characteristic, equipment requirement varies and hence spur the mining equipment market. The key raw materials required to manufacture mining equipment include steel, metal, plastics, rubber and iron. Mining equipment manufacturers segmented as tier 1 and tier 2 which supply components to original equipment manufacturers.
Major mining equipment are into crushing, mining breakers & drills, screening & pulverizing equipment, surface mining equipment, mineral processing machinery and under mining machinery. Surface mining equipment was the largest product based market in 2013 and is expected to follow the same trend over the forecast period owing to increasing demand for bauxite and iron ore coupled with planned iron ore projects across the globe. Surface mining mainly requires bulldozers, front-end loaders, service trucks, bulk trucks, maintenance equipment and rear-dump trucks. Underground mining followed surface mining in terms of product based market share in 2013. It includes equipment such as hydraulic shovels, cable shovels, continuous and long wall machine for mining. It supports digging and extracts valuable material removing unwanted contents.
Mining activity is segmented on the basis of application as coal mining, mineral mining and metal mining. Metal mining equipment market dominated the global mining equipment application market in 2013 and is also expected to witness fastest growth over the forecast period on account of increasing mining activities and precious metals demand such as silver, platinum and gold. Owing to complex extraction and operation process, this market requires huge investments. Coal mining is also anticipated to have high growth over the next eight years on account of growing demand for heating and energy generation. Mineral mining sector is expected to face slow growth owing to government regulations on its operation in many regions.
Asia Pacific was the largest market in 2013 and is anticipated to be the fastest growing market over the next eight years due to increasing mining activities and mine production in the region. Growing population in countries such as China and India led to increase in consumption which raised mining products demand. China is expected to dominate the new mining equipment market on account of dependency on energy and manufacturing, which increased natural resources demand. Europe and North America is anticipated to witness stagnant growth over the forecast period owing to stringent norms on coal and mineral mining.
The global mining equipment market is highly fragmented due to existence of huge number of market participants. The key players in the global market include Komatsu Limited, Caterpillar Inc., Sandvik AB, Hitachi Construction Machinery and Atlas CopcoAB. Huge investments in R&D to develop advance technologies to reduce complexity in extracting and operating process equipment are anticipated to create immense opportunities for the global mining equipment market.
