Looking at the rapid development of China's bearing industry, the application fields of bearings are constantly expanding. Of course, the vast sales market has also brought unpredictable development potential to the bearing industry. According to the statistical analysis of the central axis network, in 2002, the annual output of various types of bearings in China's bearing industry was 2.8 billion sets, including 62.364 million sets of P5 precision bearings and 729000 sets of P4 ultra precision bearings. In the annual sales of bearings, 33 million sets were used in the machine tool manufacturing industry. From data analysis, it can be seen that China's precision machine tool bearings have entered a period of rapid development.

Analyzing the market distribution of precision machine tool bearings in China in 2002, there were approximately 1.5 million sets of P5 and above grade bearings used in various precision machine tools, of which about half were used for machine tool spindles and ball screw bearings. P4 and above ultra precision bearings and paired bearings (mainly referring to spindle bearings and ball screw bearings) account for approximately 150000 sets.

According to the "15th Five Year Plan" for the machine tool industry, by 2005, the annual output of metal processing machine tools will reach 200000 to 22000 units, of which CNC machine tools will increase to 30000 to 35000 units (the production and sales of CNC machine tools have exceeded 30000 units in 2003), accounting for 15% of the total output, and the market share of domestic machine tools will reach 60-65%. Due to the rapid development of China's machine tool industry in recent years, the annual output of metal processing machine tools will definitely exceed the "15th Five Year Plan" target of the machine tool industry by 2005. In addition, with the development of modern machine tools towards high speed, high efficiency, and composite direction, the proportion of precision bearings equipped with precision machine tools will increase significantly. Considering the huge market for machine tool renovation and maintenance, it is predicted through analysis and calculation that in 2005, the total required supporting bearings for metal processing machine tools will exceed 50 million sets, including about 3 million sets of P5 and above precision bearings, of which approximately 1.5 million sets will be used for machine tool spindles and ball screws. These bearings are commonly used in deep groove ball bearings, angular contact ball bearings, cylindrical roller bearings, bi-directional thrust angular contact ball bearings, and tapered roller bearings.

As precision control components of machine tools, spindle bearings and ball screw bearings will have a significant increase in the proportion of P4 and above ultra precision bearings and paired bearings. The proportion will increase from 20% in 2002 to around 40% to 50% in 2005, with a total of about 700000 sets.

At present, about half of the demand for about 150000 sets of P4 and above ultra precision angular contact ball bearings in the machine tool industry comes from well-known foreign bearing companies such as FAG, NSK, SKF, SNFA, etc. In addition to psychological factors and brand effectiveness, the technical performance and reliability of bearings are the main reasons why machine tool customers choose imported bearings. If the technical indicators and reliability level of domestically produced ultra precision bearings can be comparable to imported bearings, the market potential for the next two years is enormous.

To this end, major domestic machine tool bearing supporting enterprises have begun to accelerate the pace of technological transformation, increasing investment in processing conditions, testing methods, matching technology, and reliability research. The small-scale trial production of main models and some mass-produced products have reached the international advanced level, and replacing imports is only a matter of time and scale.

According to the above, although China's bearings have a wide sales range in various fields, from the current development prospects, it can be seen that China's precision machine tool bearings have entered a period of rapid development.