GE and Vestas were tied for pole position among turbine manufacturers in the world wind market in 2012 - a record year that saw 48.4GW of new capacity installed.
 
Research by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BENF) finds that a surge of development activity in the US, where all projects had to be grid connected prior to year-end 2012 in order to qualify for its expiring tax credit, helped boost GE’s rankings, enabling it to catch up with established market leader Vestas. More than 96% of GE’s wind turbines commissioned in 2012 were in the US market. The US wind installation boom also helped foreign manufacturers with a strong presence in that country to boost sales. European manufacturers such as Siemens and Gamesa had the US as their single largest market in 2012.Even Vestas, which commissioned turbines in more markets than any other supplier, had 40% of its capacity additions of 2012 in the US. Meanwhile the Chinese wind market saw an 18% drop in annual capacity added in 2012. This pushed the four largest Chinese turbine manufacturers to the bottom of the top-10 rankings. More than 99% of turbines installed by Chinese manufacturers were in their domestic market. In 2013, fortunes are expected to reverse as BENF expects the US market to decline sharply while China stabilises and recovers.

China’s Guodian Corporation overtook Spanish utility Iberdrola to become the largest owner of operational wind assets in the world. Guodian owned 13.7GW of operating wind capacity at the end of 2012, while Iberdrola had 13.3GW. The gap will likely grow larger as Guodian maintains a large development pipeline, while Iberdrola is currently divesting its non-core wind assets. Of the top 20 wind asset owners studied by Bloomberg New Energy Finance in its market shares report, nine are European, eight are Chinese and three are American. In total, the top 20 wind asset owners in the world own 108GW, or nearly 40% of the global total of 280GW.
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