VIDEO: The 2011 Yellow Table

Caterpillar, Komatsu and Hitachi retained the top three places in this year's ranking of the world's 50 largest construction equipment manufacturers, but there were changes further down the top 10, with strong improvements for Doosan, Sany and Zoomlion.

Overall, revenues for the top 50 bounced back by some +39.4% to US$ 151.8 billion, following the crushing -35.2% drop of 2009. This was the steepest year-on-year growth seen in the industry and the second highest total for absolute revenues - only US$ 16 billion short of the all-time high of US$ 167.9 billion seen in 2008.

The recovery has been driven by red-hot demand in China and whereas last year there was only one Chinese manufacturer in the top ten, XCMG at no. 10, this year's league table sees it joined by Sany at no. 7 and Zoomlion at no. 9. Further down the rankings, Liugong, Shantui, Lonking and Sunward have all improved their positions, and as a result, Chinese manufacturers account for 15.0% of the top 50's revenues in this year's league table, compared to 12.2% last year.

The climb is all the more remarkable when you consider that in 2003, the first year the Yellow Table was published, Chinese manufacturers accounted for just 1.6% of the Top 50's revenues. In absolute terms, sales have grown from US$ 841 million in the 2003 edition (based on 2002 revenues) to US$ 22.8 billion in this year's table - a 35-fold increase.