When it comes to excavators, He Qinghua uses a word not heard that often to describe heavy construction equipment: “fashionable”.

But to He, the founder of Sunward Intelligent Equipment Co Ltd, the word aptly describes the design of one of his company’s main products.

“The mini excavators often work in urban areas. The fashionable appearance will add beauty to the constructions sites,” he said with great pride.

Founded in 1999 by He, a mechanical and electrical engineering professor at Central South University, the Changsha, China-based company has grown into an international enterprise with total assets exceeding $951 million. Sunward is among the top 50 global construction machinery manufacturers, and when it comes to excavators, the company is among the top 20 global manufacturers.

Focusing on machinery engineering and intellectual property development, the company has exported products to more than 60 countries and regions with its core products, including large piling machines, excavators, drilling equipment, mining equipment, pavement construction machinery, military machinery and general aviation equipment.

And now He is pushing the design of his equipment along with product differentiation to win the US market.

“Sunward has targeted the global market ever since it was founded, so our main overseas markets are Europe, and the US before 2008,” said He, chairman of Sunward.

Before the financial crisis, the sales of excavators in the US were pretty good, he said. “During the few years following the crisis, we didn’t focus our overseas strategy on the US market until recent two to three years,” said He.

It’s harder to achieve brand recognition in the US than in Europe, said He.

“To win this market, we have to rely on product differentiation, which means our products’ performance must exceed the performance of local products, and then we can find our customers and dealers,” He said.

Aside from the products’ performance,…

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