Friction Plate Industry Booms: Tech, New Energy & Globalization Drive Growth
As a core component of transmission and braking systems, the friction plate industry has witnessed frequent highlights recently. A number of leading enterprises have addressed industry pain points through technological innovation, achieved high-performance growth driven by the new energy market, and gained international recognition via global layout, jointly propelling the domestic friction plate industry to accelerate into a new stage of high-quality development.
In the field of technological innovation, Shanghai Huaxin and Shaanxi Hangfeng New Materials have emerged as benchmark enterprises. In March 2025, Shanghai Huaxin implemented the patent for "friction plates that reduce friction noise". Through the special structural design of sound-absorbing cavities and damping base plates, it reduces mechanical operation noise from the source. Currently, the enterprise has accumulated 55 patents and established a solid position in the friction plate markets for commercial vehicles and construction machinery. Relying on university research resources, Hangfeng New Materials has developed carbon fiber-reinforced paper-based friction materials with international advanced level, solving the problems of high wear and heavy pollution of traditional materials. Its friction plates for construction machinery gearboxes have successfully replaced imported products, applied in heavy-duty mining equipment, and broken the monopoly of foreign enterprises.
The expansion of the new energy vehicle market has injected strong growth momentum into the friction plate industry. Lintai New Materials saw its first-half net profit surge by 168% year-on-year. As a company that passed the listing review of the Beijing Stock Exchange in August 2025, Zhejiang Kema Material achieved a 42% year-on-year growth in revenue from its wet paper-based friction plate business in 2024. Currently, it has entered the core supply chains of Weichai Power and Fast Transmission, and plans to raise 206 million yuan to upgrade production capacity and R&D facilities. According to the prediction of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), the sales proportion of hybrid vehicles will exceed 25% in 2025, and the consumption of friction plates for their DHT (Dedicated Hybrid Transmission) is 30%-50% higher than that of traditional fuel vehicles. Enterprises such as Lintai New Materials and Kema Material, which laid out in advance, have achieved a revenue growth rate of over 60% in related businesses in the first half of the year, showing obvious first-mover advantages.
In terms of global layout, the international competitiveness of domestic friction plates continues to improve. In April 2025, two products of Hangfeng New Materials passed the EU CE certification. Currently, its overseas orders account for 15% of total revenue, and it plans to increase this proportion to 30% in the next three years. In the first half of the year, Lintai New Materials successfully entered the supply chain of Magna, a world-class auto parts supplier, with its overseas sales revenue increasing by 88.97% year-on-year. At the same time, it actively expands into the Southeast Asian and South American markets to build a global sales network.
Industry experts stated that the domestic friction plate industry is currently transitioning from "domestic replacement" to "global competition". In the future, enterprises with core technologies and large-scale production capacity will further promote China's transformation from a major friction plate producer to an industrial power.
