Today I stepped into an elevator at a large public hospital in Shenzhen and glanced at the panel: TKE.
That's the former thyssenkrupp Elevator. In 2020, thyssenkrupp sold its most profitable business, the elevator division, for €17.2 billion to a private-equity-led consortium to cut debt. It now operates independently as TK Elevator.
Out of curiosity, I listed the elevators in my daily life:
• My current residential compound: KONE (Finland)
• My previous compound in Nanshan, during an elevator retrofit: the owners' committee insisted on "Japanese Mitsubishi" rather than "Shanghai Mitsubishi"
• The shopping mall next door: KONE and Hitachi
• Today's hospital: TKE (Germany)
The Mitsubishi detail is telling. Shanghai Mitsubishi is a state-controlled joint venture (60% Chinese-owned). The "Japanese Mitsubishi" models are made by a different joint venture controlled by Mitsubishi Electric, also in Shanghai's Minhang district. Same city, same district. The owners weren't choosing where it was made. They were choosing whose brand it carried.
The bigger picture: China is the world's largest elevator market, with 12.3 million units registered by the end of 2025. Yet foreign brands hold roughly 70% of the market.
The secretary-general of the China Elevator Association put it plainly: the technology and safety gap is small; the real gap is brand.
Seven or eight years ago, I worked on the overseas expansion of a leading Chinese elevator brand. Today, Chinese elevators are still rare in premium projects at home, and becoming a top-tier brand in Europe or North America is even harder.
The day quality residential compounds, premium offices, malls and leading hospitals in China's top cities choose domestic elevators will be the day Chinese brands have truly moved upmarket.
Have you ever noticed the brand of the elevator in your building?
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