Lao Chen, who has been selling grinding wheels for almost ten years, once told me about the biggest detour he took: for his first three years, he kept looking for customers "downstream of the abrasives and grinding-tools industry" — but framing it under the broad industry of "machinery manufacturing," he was staring at hundreds of thousands of factories, and fewer than one in ten actually needed grinding wheels. Later he switched angles — instead of asking "what industry is this," he asked "does this factory actually run a grinding process, and what material is it grinding" — and the quality of his list jumped several times over. Tianxia Gongchang has more than 150,000 real downstream factories for abrasives and grinding tools. The question is: what dimension do you use to cut into them?
The Downstream Really Has 150,000 Factories, But "Industry" Is Too Blunt a Knife
Tianxia Gongchang counted the factories genuinely running grinding-related processes, totaling 157,416. That's not a small number, but Lao Chen's point still holds: these 150,000 factories are spread across completely different industries — machining, molds and dies, foundry/casting, bearings, auto parts, and more. If you use "industry" as your cutting logic and lump the whole of "machinery manufacturing" or "metal products" together, you get a pool that's huge but blurry — some of these companies really do run grinding wheels every day, while others never touch grinding at all, doing everything by stamping or welding.
What makes abrasives and grinding tools unique as a category is that its demand anchor is the process, not the industry. Take the same auto-parts factory: the one making stamped parts doesn't need you, but the one grinding gears is your core customer. Take the same mold factory: the one making wood molds doesn't buy CBN wheels, but the one making tungsten-carbide molds may use a volume that surprises you in a single year. Cutting by industry is the first filter; filtering by "does it actually grind" is the second — and the one that really works.
Five Sub-Pools: Completely Different Grinding Needs, Completely Different Wheel Types
I went ahead and split these 150,000 factories into sub-pools on Tianxia Gongchang. Here's the result:
| Sub-pool | Size | Main grinding scenario | Common abrasive-tool categories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Machining / metal products | 46,685 | Cylindrical grinding, surface grinding, internal-bore grinding | Ordinary grinding wheels, abrasive belts, cutting discs |
| Molds and dies | 26,237 | Precision cavity grinding, electrode dressing | CBN wheels, diamond abrasive tools |
| Foundry / casting | 11,627 | Casting deburring/grinding, flash removal | Heavy-duty grinding discs, flap discs |
| Bearings | 7,332 | Raceway super-finishing, face grinding | Precision grinding wheels, super-finishing stones |
| Auto parts (grinding-relevant subset) | Directional reference | Camshaft grinding, brake-pad grinding | CBN / ordinary wheels (depends on process) |
Note that the auto-parts sub-pool totals nearly 69,000 factories on Tianxia Gongchang, but grinding demand there depends heavily on the specific process — an auto-parts factory making rubber seals and one making transmission gears live in two different worlds when it comes to abrasive-tool demand. So treat auto parts only as a directional reference; we don't recommend using the whole auto-parts pool directly as a call list.
The two pools you can actually cut into and call directly are machining at 46,685 and molds/dies at 26,237 — the former is high-volume with frequent consumption of ordinary wheels; the latter has a high unit price with fat margins on superhard abrasive tools.
The Map: Where Grinding Customers Cluster
Lao Chen has spent ten years in abrasives and grinding tools, and the cities he's traveled to most are Suzhou, Ningbo, and Dongguan. The data confirms his instinct:
Machining / metal products (46,685) — the main battlefield for grinding wheels, abrasive belts, and cutting discs
- Core cities: Suzhou 2,520, Wuxi 2,385, Dongguan 2,297, Cangzhou 2,042, Shanghai 1,913, Ningbo 1,622
- Top provinces: Jiangsu 8,113, Guangdong 6,951, Shandong 5,988, Zhejiang 5,864
Molds and dies (26,237) — the main battlefield for CBN / diamond superhard abrasive tools
- Core cities: Dongguan 1,147, Cangzhou 1,019, Taizhou 735, Tianjin 693, Wuxi 677
- Top provinces: Jiangsu 3,872, Shandong 3,388, Hebei 3,093, Guangdong 2,824
Foundry / casting (11,627) — the main battlefield for heavy-duty grinding discs
- Core cities: Chaozhou 2,096, Jinhua 1,045, Binzhou 855, Jieyang 618
- Top provinces: Guangdong 5,170, Zhejiang 2,036, Shandong 1,757
Bearings (7,332) — the main battlefield for precision grinding wheels and super-finishing stones
- Core cities: Liaocheng 2,115, Ningbo 1,023, Shaoxing 568, Dalian 351
- Top provinces: Shandong 2,483, Zhejiang 2,094, Jiangsu 664
Overall, Zhejiang province ranks first among all downstream factories by province with 28,193, followed closely by Jiangsu at 25,341, with Shandong at 18,722 and Guangdong at 18,250 running neck and neck. The Yangtze River Delta, the region Lao Chen knows best, really is the most densely packed battlefield for abrasives and grinding-tool sales.
By city, Ningbo (7,507) and Taizhou (5,775) lead the pack — Zhejiang's two powerhouses are almost markets unto themselves. Cangzhou (5,097) makes the list in both the machining and molds/dies sub-pools, making it an underrated grinding-customer cluster in North China.
The Practical Logic of Finding Customers by "Grinding Process"
Lao Chen's current playbook is: pick the category first, then the city, and verify the process last.
To sell ordinary grinding wheels and abrasive belts, he starts with the 46,685 machining factories. On Tianxia Gongchang you can filter this sub-pool directly by industry code, then layer on city — for example, looking only at Jiangsu machining factories gives you 8,113, and further filtering for 50+ insured employees immediately surfaces the scale customers from the massive list.
To sell CBN or diamond superhard abrasive tools, he turns to the 26,237 mold and die factories. Customers in this pool have a high unit price, but the decision-maker is usually a workshop director or procurement manager, not the owner. On Tianxia Gongchang you can see the legal representative, insured headcount, and registered capital, so he prioritizes mold factories with 20+ insured employees and registered capital above 1 million yuan — very small mold factories often place one order and disappear, and maintaining them isn't worth the cost.
To sell heavy-duty grinding discs, he focuses on the 11,627 foundry factories, especially the 2,096-factory cluster in Chaozhou, Guangdong — Chaozhou's foundry density is extremely high, so a single trip can cover a dozen-plus visits back to back, far more efficient than scattering visits at random.
To sell precision grinding wheels, the 7,332 bearing factories are his core list. Liaocheng alone has 2,115 bearing factories, making it almost its own dedicated visit map.
Why Searching by Industry Always Falls Just Short
Searching by keywords like "abrasive tools" or "grinding wheels" on platforms like Qichacha or Tianyancha tends to surface peers who also sell abrasive tools, not the factories that buy them; exporting the entire "machinery manufacturing" industry, on the other hand, mixes in a large number of factories that don't grind at all. Years ago, Lao Chen paid 1,500 yuan for a machinery-manufacturing list on one platform — out of 5,000 companies, fewer than 600 actually had a grinding process, and by the time he finished dialing, his hand was sore for nothing.
Tianxia Gongchang works differently — across its 4.8 million+ real factory profiles, every factory's industry code is cross-verified against both its business registration and its social-insurance enrollment records, not pulled from a keyword search. The 157,416 factories filtered by grinding-related industry codes are factories genuinely running these processes, not false hits from "a keyword appearing somewhere in the company name."
This gap is especially clear in the molds/dies sub-pool. Among the 26,237 mold factories, a good share make stamping molds or injection molds and do precision milling — these factories may not buy precision grinding wheels at all. But mold factories making tungsten-carbide molds or automotive interior-trim molds run grinding as a daily process. On Tianxia Gongchang you can see a factory's registered business scope and business description to help you tell them apart further — a Qichacha-style export gives you only registration info, and you're left dialing on luck.
Use Tianxia Gongchang to Filter Out This List
- On Tianxia Gongchang, filter sub-pools by grinding-related industry code, then narrow to a single visit zone by city
- Layer on insured headcount to filter out tiny factories and push effective customer density to its highest
- Check the legal representative's contact details to reach the procurement or workshop lead directly, bypassing the front desk
- Weekly-updated business registration data keeps the list from going stale
Tianxia Gongchang membership, ¥768/year: 4.8 million+ real factory profiles, unlimited filtering and export by industry code + city + insured headcount, with business-registration and insurance data synced weekly. Use it for a year and you effectively own a constantly refreshed living list, instead of a dead document that starts expiring the moment you buy it.
→ Filter machining/grinding customers on Tianxia Gongchang
→ Get a Tianxia Gongchang membership now, ¥768/year
Self-Check Before You Head Out: Is Your Grinding-Customer List Accurate Enough?
- Is your list filtered by "the industry the grinding process sits in," or bundled in under the broad category of "machinery manufacturing"? How many non-grinding factories does the latter mix in?
- For the product you're pushing most (ordinary wheels / superhard abrasive tools / grinding discs / precision wheels), have you built separate lists for the corresponding sub-pool? Machining and molds/dies have completely different decision logic.
- Have you checked the grinding-customer density in the cities you focus on against the data? Are Liaocheng's bearing factories and Chaozhou's foundries on your travel map?
- Have you done a preliminary size filter on every factory in your list? Small factories with fewer than 10 insured employees usually can't justify your visit cost with their abrasive-tool consumption.
- Is the list you last bought already six months old? Factories open and close fast — Tianxia Gongchang syncs business-registration and insurance updates weekly, so calling off an old list is wasting your own time.
Published by the Tianxia Gongchang Research Institute.