/PRZWT/ On January 9th, "RT Rail Transit" released the 2025 Data Report on China's Urban Rail Transit Market. The data clearly reveals the landscape of the air conditioning market in China's urban rail transit: The three major Chinese brands, Haier, Gree, and Midea, are leading the market, collectively capturing over 76% of the market share and holding an absolute dominant position. In contrast, the foreign brands that were once active in this market are rarely seen nowadays.
In the early stage of China's rail transit development, foreign brands held a dominant position in the urban rail air conditioning market. Starting from the Beijing Metro Line 1 in 1965, the air conditioning systems in early subway stations were all provided by European and American brands. At that time, domestic brands were just beginning to emerge. In 1993, Haier and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries jointly established a business to produce commercial central air conditioning systems. Around 1999, brands such as Midea and Gree also entered the market.
However, along the way, there were numerous obstacles. At that time, foreign brands, leveraging their established technological advantages and market reputation, used hidden barriers such as "the compressor and the main unit must be of the same brand" in the bidding documents to firmly exclude domestic brands from the market.
It was Haier's technological breakthrough that truly shattered this monopoly. Beyond the technical parameters, Haier focused on the customization of scenarios, creating personalized solutions for each user. In 2005, Haier won the bid for the Guangzhou Metro Line 3, breaking the foreign monopoly. Subsequently, from 2006 to 2009, Haier made rapid progress and successively won contracts for the Shenzhen Metro, Nanjing Metro, Tianjin Metro, Shanghai Metro, Beijing Metro, and over 20 other lines.
Meanwhile, other major Chinese brands have also followed their own characteristics and embarked on distinctive growth paths. Midea focuses on efficient machine rooms and intelligent control, achieving outstanding energy efficiency performance in Shanghai Metro Lines 2 and 11. Gree, on the other hand, concentrates on the domestication of core components, and has self-developed magnetic levitation centrifugal compressors applied to the Jing-Xiong Intercity Railway. At the same time, professional brands such as Guoxiang and Shenling have established technical barriers in specific fields, jointly forming a multi-level and complementary competitive pattern for Chinese brands.
Today, Chinese brands such as Haier, Midea and Gree not only have achieved an absolute dominance in market share, but have also defined new industry standards in cutting-edge fields like digital energy conservation and intelligent operation and maintenance. The future uncertainty lies no longer in the competition between domestic and foreign brands, but in how the various Chinese brands can drive the sustainable development of China's and even global rail transportation through greener and smarter innovations.
