Solid carbide cutting tools are widely used, and they are the main digital cutting tools of machine tools.Cutting tool is a tool used for cutting in mechanical manufacturing. It is the basic industry of mechanical manufacturing and major base area, accounting for about 90% of the total machining workload, which directly determines the production level of the machinery manufacturing industry.According to the material, metal cutting tools can be further divided into cemented carbide tools, high-speed steel tools, ceramic tools, superhard tools and so on.In fact, there are many kinds of materials suitable for CNC tool, but from the point of view of performance and application range, cemented carbide has high hardness,wear resistance, toughness and other advantages, more widely used in the field, is the main tool of digital manufacturing.
Demand side: the machine tool industry is warming up and the CNC rate is increasing, which drives the tool industry to recover.From 2017 to 2019, affected by the slowdown of macroeconomic growth, especially the decline of automobile and consumer electronics industry, China’s machine tool market has experienced three consecutive years of decline.In the first half of 2020, with the effective control of the covid-19 situation, China’s manufacturing industry has recovered rapidly, and the machine tool industry has rebounded from the bottom, which is expected to drive the recovery of the cutting tool industry.On the other hand, according to the data of the National Bureau of statistics, the CNC rate of metal cutting machine tools in China has increased from 25.8% in 2012 to 44.9% in 2021.The continuous improvement of CNC machine tool rate is expected to drive the vigorous development of carbide end mills .According to our calculation, assuming that the proportion of cemented carbide in cutting tool consumption increases by 1.5% every year, then in 2022, under these three circumstances: the scale of the domestic tool market decreased by 2% year-on-year, remained flat year-on-year, and increased by 2% year-on-year.The market scale of cemented carbide cutting tools increased by 150 million yuan, 650 million yuan and 1.16 billion yuan respectively.
Domestic substitution: transformation and upgrading of manufacturing industry + “epidemic bonus””Under the background, domestic substitution is accelerating. China’s cutting tool market scale experienced a decline from 2012 to 2016, but at the same time, it also brought about the increase of advanced production capacity. With the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry and the encouragement and support of national policies, China’s cutting tool enterprises continue to make efforts to the medium and high-end market. Since 2017, China’s tool import dependence began to decline year by year. In 2020, although the market scale of cutting tools in China has experienced a decline. According to the data of China Machine Tool Industry Association, China Customs and prospective industry research institute, the total consumption of domestic cutting tools in 2021 will be about 43.6 billion yuan, and the consumption of imported cutting tools will be 10.632 billion yuan,The import dependence has dropped to 24.39%, which is significantly lower than that of 36% in 2016.According to our calculation, the current market size of cemented carbide cutting tools occupied by Japan and South Korea is about 2.1 billion yuan. Assuming that the market share of Japanese and Korean cutter brands in China will drop to 500 million yuan in the next three years, and the Chine’s tool brands will replace the rest of the market shares in 2022-2024, it is expected to replace Japanese and Korean cutting tools every year 533 million yuan of market share, a total of 1.6 billion yuan of market share.
Supply side: enterprises are scrambling to expand production, and it is estimated that 540 million output value will be released.According to our analysis of the output and expansion plans of the four leading companies, namely, China Tungsten hi tech, Xiamen tungsten industry, okiyi and Sinovel precision, it is estimated that the total production capacity of the four companies will increase by 63 million pieces in 2022.According to the 70% market share of the four companies and the price of each piece is 6 yuan, the new capacity of cemented carbide numerical control blade supply side in the whole industry in 2022 corresponds to the scale of 540 million yuan.On the whole, if the domestic tool consumption in 2022 shrinks compared with that in 2021, the supply-demand balance of cemented carbide CNC blade will be basically maintained (the demand is slightly greater than the supply), and if the domestic tool consumption is flat or slightly increased, then there will be an obvious pattern of supply exceeding demand.
Demand for cemented carbide tools: increased proportion of types + domestic substitution, and it is expected that the demand will continue to grow
Why choose carbide cutting tools?
CNC tool is a tool used for cutting in mechanical manufacturing, also known as cutting tool.Since the cutting tools used in mechanical manufacturing are basically used to cut metal materials, “cutting tool” is generally understood as a metal cutting tool.Cutting tool industry is the basic industry in mechanical manufacturing and major technical fields, accounting for about 90% of the total machining workload, and plays an important role in the fields of automobile, mold, general machinery, engineering machinery, energy equipment, rail transit, aerospace and other fields.High efficiency and advanced cutting tools can significantly improve the processing efficiency and reduce the production cost by 10-15%. It can be said that the quality of cutting tools directly determines the production level of the machinery manufacturing industry.
According to the material, metal cutting tools can be further divided into solid carbide tools, high speed steel tools, ceramic tools, superhard tools, etc.High speed steel and cemented carbide cutting tools occupy an important position in the cutting tool market in China.From the global market point of view, cemented carbide accounts for 63% of the cutting tool market scale, and high-speed steel accounts for 26%. Compared with domestic cemented carbide accounting for 53% and HSS for 21%, both have certain room for improvement.
Before the large-scale use of cemented carbide, high-speed steel is the most commonly used tool.High speed steel (HSS) is a kind of high hardness steel (hrc62-69), high wear resistance and high heat resistance tool steel, also known as high speed tool steel or front steel, white steel.High speed steel has good process performance, good strength and toughness, sharp cutting edge and stable quality after grinding. It is generally used to manufacture complex thin edge and impact resistant metal cutting tools, as well as high temperature bearing and cold extrusion die.
