Vestas, the world's top wind turbine maker, has seen its mainland market share shrink as local turbine manufacturers begin to squeeze out foreign competitors with lower prices.
With the mainland tipped to become the world's biggest wind market by 2010, the growing success of domestic manufacturers is a worrying development for foreign giants such as Denmark's Vestas, Spain's Gamesa and General Electric of the United States.
Vestas installed 406 megawatts of new turbines last year, less than 12 per cent of the 3,500MW that came on line and significantly below the 25 per cent market share it enjoyed just two years ago, the company's figures show.
'Over the past 12 months, new local companies have come into the market ... We have moved as fast as we could in China without compromising our earnings,' president and chief executive Ditlev Engel said in Beijing yesterday.
Vestas' gross profit last year was 9 per cent, which Mr Engle described as 'satisfactory'.
Analysts said foreign turbine manufacturers had been hit by a double whammy of new regulations that boosted domestic competitors such as Goldwin Technologies, which controls the largest chunk of the mainland market.