Pressure cleaners, sometimes also referred to as water blasters and steam cleaners (in relation to hot water machines), is an area of technology which has been dominated by the Italians with a strong manufacturing industry supporting this product category.
Some time ago, there were over 50 manufacturers of pressure cleaners in Italy which is by far the largest in the world.
Only recently, China has begun manufacturing and now have many manufacturing bases cloning cleaners based on cleaners from Italy.
Whilst the entry of China into the pressure cleaner market has been very quick, the quality of the manufacturing process as well as the materials used are not the same as used in Italy.
The particular area of the pressure cleaner market that the Chinese machines have made a massive and credible entry into is the gasoline or petrol powered cold water cleaners.
While the developing Chinese market is lucrative due to the low manufacturing costs, the petrol cleaners allow for a more affordable quality option compared to the smaller machines made from this machine.
Small electric cleaners have been manufactured in China in small numbers with different degrees of reliability success, but they have been limited in producing hot water machines.
The Hot Water pressure cleaner which basically heats it's own water in the unit after it has been pressurized, is a lot more complicated than the cold water machine.
When quality control improves and the quality of steel is also improved, the Chinese machines will make very fast inroads into the Commercial/Industrial market of Hot Water Pressure Cleaners.
The pressure cleaner industry worldwide is not as collectively organised compared to the motor car industry, leaving very little statistical data in relation to market share or joint manufacturing research and development.
The large pressure cleaning manufacturers are not interested in sharing technologies and world wide figures, therefore have no want for an overseeing body.
The other stumbling block with obtaining statistics from companies is that not of them rely on the same markets.
Some focus solely on the small domestic markets with electric cleaners, others on the industrial markets with large petrol machines while the main companies manufacture machines for all types of markets.
Domestic or hobby machines make up most of the market, especially in Australia based on number of sales alone.
These sales numbers may be the same elsewhere in the world, although there's no statistical data to prove this.