Zoomlion Posts 52 Pct Jump in 2018 Profit Following Economic Recovery and Higher Efficiency Gains

- "Zoomlion has adopted new approaches, unleashed new development momentum, and emerged from the bottom of a U-shaped growth curve, to enter a new stage of quality-driven capacity growth," Chairman Zhan Chunxin said in the annual report, published on March 29. Zoomlion's net income attributable to shareholders increased 51.65 percent to 2.02 billion yuan in 2018, while sales grew 23.3 percent to 28.697 billion yuan. Gross margins jumped nearly six percentage points to 27.09 percent thanks to cost-cutting in finance, management and marketing. The company's operating cash flow jumped 77.63 percent to a record 5.064 billion yuan, paving the way for healthy, sustainable growth. In 2018, China's construction machinery industry benefited from an economically stable domestic market, and increased demand for new equipment as a result of Beijing's stepped up environmental and infrastructure investment policies. Taking advantage of favorable conditions, Zoomlion merged its core business of manufacturing with a new digitization strategy, accelerating its transformation into an "intelligent manufacturer" with "smart products."       In the construction sector, the company steadily expanded market share in existing segments, entered new arenas and improved both the scale and quality of hero-line products. Zoomlion maintained its top market share in the construction crane machinery and concrete long-arm pump truck sector; launched an integrated network for the G-series next-generation earth moving machinery products; and charged into theaerial work platform sector, releasing eight high-end, intelligent models across three categories in October. Zoomlion entered the industrial Internet field with the founding of ZValley Company and established themselves as an AI-equipment maker. Globally, Zoomlion continues to speed up the development of overseas production bases, forming local manufacturing clusters along the "One Belt, One Road" initiative. Expanding operations in several countries the company has: Looking ahead, Zoomlion will continue to strengthen its management and technology capabilities and embrace the future of technologically integrated engineering equipment. For more information, please visit: http://en.zoomlion.com/ About Zoomlion  Founded in 1992, Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science & Technology Co., Ltd. (Zoomlion) (SZSE:000157) is a high-end equipment manufacturing enterprise that integrates engineering machinery, agricultural machinery and financial services. The company now sells nearly 460 cutting-edge products from 55 product lines covering ten major categories.