On January 7, 2026, authoritative platforms such as Caixin Media and Sina Finance simultaneously disclosed the latest data from customs and the industry. In the first eight months of 2025, China's transformer export market witnessed explosive growth, with an export value reaching 29.711 billion yuan, becoming another core highlight of China's high-end equipment going global in the context of global energy transition. Among them, the export growth rate to the European market soared by 138%, far exceeding that of other overseas regions. Affected by the global market's imbalance between supply and demand, European customers are even willing to pay a 20% premium to secure supplies. Orders for Chinese transformers have been scheduled until after 2026. As a core supporting equipment of the power system, transformers are "essential equipment" in scenarios such as new energy power generation, grid upgrading, and AI computing power operation. The strong performance of Chinese transformers in overseas markets this time not only confirms the hard-core strength of "Made in China" in the field of power transmission and transformation, but also highlights China's industry position as the core of global transformer supply. It also provides crucial Chinese equipment support for the global energy transition and power grid upgrading.
Core data provides solid evidence that the European market has become the primary engine for overseas growth.
Core data provides solid evidence
The China sea boom of transformer is not a short-term market volatility, but authoritative customs data and industry statistics, the dimension data are showing strong growth, the European market to be the core power of the boost exports, specific core data is as follows: the overall export revenues sharply: In the first eight months of 2025, China's transformer export value reached 29.711 billion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of over 51%. The average daily revenue was 124 million yuan, and both the revenue scale and growth rate achieved outstanding results in the industry. Significant regional market differentiation, a European coppi: export growth to Europe markets jumped 138%, far in excess of the market 65.39%, Africa 28.03% growth in Asia, as China's fastest export growth transformer in overseas markets; Market shortage gave rise to clinch a deal at a premium, affected by the global transformer capacity gap, capacity is difficult to meet the market demand, local enterprises in the European overseas customers to promote network reconstruction, new energy and other projects, take the initiative to accept a 20% price premium locking sourcing in China, at present, the Chinese export average transformer has amounted to $20800 / sets; A huge industry long-term growth potential: international professional agency predicted, global transformer market scale will break through $103 billion in 2031, from 2021, double scale. As the supply core that accounts for 60% of the global transformer production capacity, China will continue to reap the demand dividends of the global market, and the prospects for the industry to go global are broad.
The global transformer market demand has seen a sudden surge due to the superimposition of three core essential needs
Chinese transformers can become a "hot commodity" in the global market, with the core reason being that they have seized the era's opportunities of global energy transformation and technological upgrading. The rigid demand for transformers in overseas markets has erupted in an all-round way, and three key factors have become the core driving forces behind the growth in demand:
The aging of the power grid has forced the global power grid to upgrade, and the demand for core equipment has soared
Relevant reports show that most of the power grid facilities in Europe have been in service for 40 to 50 years. The aging problem of power grid equipment in the United States is even more prominent, with 31% of its transmission equipment and 46% of its distribution facilities having exceeded their service life. The safe operation of the power grid is facing huge challenges, and the global power grid upgrade is extremely urgent. At present, European and American countries have introduced large-scale power grid investment plans, aiming to invest over 1.1 trillion US dollars in power grid upgrading and transformation within five years. Among them, the investment scale of the US power grid will reach 207.9 billion US dollars by 2025. As a core supporting equipment for power grid upgrades, the market demand for transformers has been on the rise.
The acceleration of grid connection for new energy power generation directly drives the demand for transformers.
Under the global carbon neutrality goal, new energy projects such as photovoltaic, wind power and energy storage have become the core directions of energy development in various countries. For new energy power stations to be connected to the grid for power generation, they must rely on transformers to complete voltage conversion, and transformers have become a key link in the new energy power generation industry chain. By 2025, the newly installed photovoltaic capacity in Southeast Asia will reach 18GW, directly driving a 60% increase in the demand for transformers in this region. The rapid development of the global new energy industry has brought continuous demand growth to the transformer market.
The power consumption of the AI computing power industry has surged, leading to a blowout in demand for special transformers.
The rapid development of the artificial intelligence industry has brought about a massive demand for computing power. The operation of computing power centers has significantly increased the requirements for power supporting equipment, making them an important demand scenario for special transformers. According to industry estimates, the electricity consumption during a three-day training process of ChatGPT is sufficient to support 3,000 Tesla vehicles to travel 320,000 kilometers; Meta's new medium-sized data center alone requires hundreds of transformers. Driven by the AI boom, the construction of data centers and computing power centers has accelerated, promoting a surge in the market demand for special transformers. Chinese enterprises, with mature technologies in the field of special transformers, have accurately met this wave of market demand.
Leading enterprises are each leveraging their strengths to carry the banner of Chinese transformers going global
China's transformers have been able to gain a firm foothold in the global market and achieve explosive growth, which is inseparable from the strong technological strength and global layout of domestic leading enterprises. The latest operating dynamics disclosed by several listed companies show that leading enterprises each have core advantages and have become the core force promoting the overseas expansion of Chinese transformers:
TBEA: As a leading enterprise in the industry, TBEA has achieved remarkable results in its overseas market layout. From January to September 2025, the contracted amount of its overseas power transmission and transformation business reached 1.24 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of more than 80%. At the same time, it won a 2.4 billion US dollar UHV project in Saudi Arabia, with the contracted amount of a single project far exceeding the annual revenue of many peers, demonstrating outstanding global competitiveness in the field of UHV power transmission and transformation.
Siyuan Electric: A "key attacker" deeply engaged in the high-end markets of Europe and the United States, its overseas business has grown rapidly in regions such as the Middle East, Europe, and South America. In the first half of 2025, its overseas revenue increased by 88.91% year-on-year, and it successfully broke through the technical barriers of high-end transformers in Europe, becoming a core representative of Chinese enterprises entering the high-end European market.
Eaglerise: An "invisible champion" in the transformer segment, focusing on the R&D and production of transformers in the fields of data centers and new energy, with impressive growth in data center transformer orders. Its overseas factories achieve a monthly output of 700 new energy transformers, directly serving core customers in the European and American energy storage fields. Currently, the proportion of the company's product exports is close to 30%.
Jintan Technology: A "dark horse" in the industry's overseas expansion, with overseas orders surging by 180% year-on-year. It focuses on the R&D and production of special transformers for data centers, accurately meeting the equipment needs of the AI computing power industry. Meanwhile, it has laid out production capacity in Mexico, directly meeting the transformer procurement needs of global technology giants such as Google and Microsoft, with a precise and efficient global production capacity layout.
The full industrial chain and efficient delivery build the core competitive barriers for Chinese enterprises
Overseas customers are willing to pay a premium for China transformers and wait in line for supplies, primarily because China enterprises possess two irreplicable core competitive advantages, which is also the "China confidence" that local manufacturers in Europe and America find hard to match
Independent and controllable entire industry chain, with significant advantages in cost and supply chain
The core raw materials for transformer production are copper and oriented silicon steel. Currently, the self-sufficiency rate of these two types of core raw materials in China has exceeded 90%. Among them, the oriented silicon steel products of Baowu Steel and Shougang Co., Ltd. account for more than 70% of the domestic market share. The independent supply of core raw materials has enabled China's transformer enterprises to break free from the constraints of overseas supply chains, while also reducing production costs by 15%, creating a dual advantage in both price and supply chain stability.
Delivery speed far surpasses international peers, precisely addressing the pain point of customers who 'cannot afford to wait'
Against the backdrop of surging global market demand, delivery efficiency has become a core consideration for customers when choosing suppliers, and Chinese enterprises are significantly ahead of European and American manufacturers in terms of delivery speed: the delivery cycle of local European transformer manufacturers is generally 18 months, and that of American manufacturers even requires a two-year wait. In contrast, Chinese transformer enterprises can generally control their delivery cycle within 10-12 months, and for customers' urgent orders, they can even shorten the delivery cycle to 8 months. This efficient delivery capability accurately addresses the core pain point of overseas customers being "unable to wait" when advancing projects, becoming a key driver for Chinese transformers to seize the global market.
From once relying on imports for high-end equipment to now competing for orders in the global market with customers taking the initiative to offer premiums, the upsurge of Chinese transformers going global is not only a market breakthrough for a single product but also a vivid manifestation of the transformation and upgrading from "Made in China" to "Intelligent Manufacturing in China". Behind this is the comprehensive demonstration of the strength of China's entire power transmission and transformation industry chain. Under the superposition of multiple trends such as global energy transformation, the rapid development of the AI computing power industry, and grid upgrading and transformation, the demand in the global transformer market will continue to grow. Relying on the advantages of the entire industry chain, strong technical strength, and efficient delivery capability, Chinese transformer enterprises will continue to "conquer territories" in the global market, allowing more countries to witness the strength of China's high-end equipment manufacturing and providing more solid Chinese equipment support for global energy transformation and infrastructure upgrading.