Elevator Parts Industry Embraces New Development Opportunities: Driven by Technological Innovation and Green Transformation

As the elevator industry accelerates its march toward intelligence and low-carbonization, the elevator parts industry—its core support— is ushering in a new round of development opportunities. In the first half of 2024, the scale of China's elevator parts market exceeded 38 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 12.5%. Among them, intelligent sensing parts, energy-saving drive components, and environmentally friendly material parts have become the main growth drivers, promoting the industry's upgrade from "basic supporting" to "technological empowerment".​

Intelligent Parts Become the Focus of Competition, with Accelerated Iteration of Sensors and Control Systems​

Driven by both the demand for elevator safety and intelligence, intelligent parts have become the core track for enterprise competition. On one hand, intelligent elevator sensing parts have achieved rapid iteration. For instance, the accuracy of displacement sensors and weight sensors has increased by more than 30% compared with traditional products. These sensors can real-time monitor data such as elevator car position, load capacity, and operation vibration, and trigger protection mechanisms immediately when abnormalities occur. A "multi-dimensional sensing module" newly launched by a domestic parts enterprise has even integrated 8 monitoring functions, including temperature, humidity, and acceleration, and has been applied in the intelligent elevator control systems of major domestic elevator brands.​

On the other hand, elevator control system parts are upgrading toward the "Internet of Things +" model. By combining traditional control cabinets with 5G modules and edge computing chips, the new-generation control system can realize real-time upload of elevator operation data and remote diagnosis, shortening the fault response time to within 15 minutes. According to data from the China Elevator Association, the market penetration rate of intelligent control system parts reached 45% in the first half of 2024, an increase of 12 percentage points compared with the same period last year, and is expected to exceed 50% by the end of the year.​

Remarkable Achievements in Green Transformation, Energy-Saving Parts Become Market Mainstream​

Driven by the "dual carbon" goals, the elevator parts industry has significantly accelerated its green transformation. Energy-saving drive components have become the mainstream choice in the market. Among them, the market share of permanent magnet synchronous traction machines has exceeded 80%. Compared with traditional asynchronous traction machines, their energy efficiency is increased by 25%-30%, and the noise is reduced to below 55 decibels, meeting the quiet needs of scenarios such as residences and hospitals. At the same time, parts enterprises have further improved the energy efficiency of drive components by optimizing the motor winding structure and adopting high-efficiency heat dissipation materials. Some products have even reached the international first-class energy efficiency standard.​

The application scope of environmentally friendly material parts is also continuously expanding. For example, elevator door machine belts have been upgraded from traditional rubber materials to environmentally friendly polyurethane materials. This not only extends the service life to more than 8 years (compared with about 5 years for traditional products) but also enables 100% recycling. In addition, elevator car interior parts increasingly use low-formaldehyde and degradable, environmentally friendly panels to meet consumers' demand for a healthy living environment. According to an industry survey, the sales volume of green and environmentally friendly elevator parts increased by 35% year-on-year in the first half of 2024, becoming an important driving force for the industry's growth.​

Changes in Market Demand Structure, Renovation of Old Elevators Drive Surge in Parts Demand​

With the in-depth advancement of the national old elevator renewal and renovation project, the demand structure of the elevator parts market is undergoing significant changes. In addition to the previously focused safety gears, the replacement demand for elevator door machine system parts, guide rail components, and speed governors has increased significantly. Taking the door machine system as an example, the door machine inverters and door machine motors of old elevators are prone to failures due to long-term use. The replacement volume of related parts increased by 60% year-on-year in the first half of 2024. Among them, new-type door machine parts with intelligent anti-pinch and self-adaptive adjustment functions are more favored by renovation projects.​

At the same time, the expansion of the elevator market in rural areas and third- and fourth-tier cities has also brought new growth points for parts enterprises. In response to the characteristics of unstable voltage and frequent sandstorms in rural areas, parts enterprises have launched customized products such as "wide-voltage adaptive control cabinets" and "dust-proof door machine guide rails", solving the operation problems of elevators in special environments. Data shows that the sales volume of elevator parts in third- and fourth-tier cities and rural areas increased by 18% year-on-year in the first half of 2024, a growth rate higher than the 10% in first-tier cities.​

Industry Challenges and Future Outlook​

Despite the broad market prospects, the elevator parts industry still faces challenges such as pending breakthroughs in core technologies and homogeneous competition. At present, high-end sensors, high-precision encoders, and other key parts still rely on imports. Although the R&D investment intensity of domestic enterprises has increased by 1.2 percentage points compared with last year, there is still a gap compared with international leading enterprises. In addition, some small and medium-sized parts enterprises engage in low-price competition and have uneven product quality in order to seize market share, which requires further strengthening of industry standards and supervision.​

Looking to the future, with the continuous deepening of the intelligent and low-carbon trends in the elevator industry, as well as the advancement of old elevator renovation and urban renewal projects, the market scale of the elevator parts industry is expected to exceed 80 billion yuan in 2024. Industry insiders point out that parts enterprises need to increase investment in core technology R&D, focus on fields such as intelligent sensing, energy-saving drives, and environmentally friendly materials, and at the same time, strengthen collaborative innovation with elevator whole-machine enterprises and Internet of Things enterprises to promote the elevator parts industry toward high-quality and high-value-added development.