OREANDA-NEWS  As of the spring of 2026, Russian elevator plants are only two-thirds full of capacity, and the situation continues to deteriorate. Kommersant writes about this.

The main reasons for this trend are the disruption of the program to replace obsolete elevators in apartment buildings, the recession in construction and the high key rate, which does not allow elevator buyers to increase demand.

Last year, according to Rosstat, the production of lifts in the country fell by 6.4 percent, to 25.4 thousand units. Some manufacturers have been particularly hard hit. For example, Meteor Lift had a 26.3 percent decrease in production, while Moslift had a 39 percent decrease.

Competition from Chinese manufacturers remains an important reason. Director of Eonessi LLC (underutilization of the enterprise is 25 percent) Valery Kolupaev explained that the Chinese take into account all the options and use materials that are much better in consumer properties than Russian ones.

Domestic producers, faced with a failure in the commercial market, hoped for the public sector, but its funds are insufficient. Nevertheless, some manufacturers who have received large contracts have been able to increase output. Among them are the Shcherbinsky Elevator Plant (ShchLZ) and the Karacharovsky Mechanical Plant (KMZ).

The market participants interviewed by the publication believe that the elevator equipment market will continue to fall unless the government pays attention to it. We are talking about co-financing the purchase of elevators to replace existing ones, subsidies or tax benefits.

Earlier, the Russian Elevator Association estimated that in the first quarter of 2026, the share of Chinese elevators in the Russian market reached 23.3 percent. In 2024, their share was two times less.