On August 14th, the China Machine Tool Builders' Association released a report on the economic operation of the machine tool industry in the first half of 2025, summarizing the main operation indicators of the machine tool industry in the first half of 2025 and making predictions on the operation in the second half of 2025.
Overall, in the first half of 2025, the effective investment in some user industries continued to expand. The investment in the purchase of equipment and tools increased by 17.3% year-on-year, with the growth rate 14.5 percentage points higher than the total investment. This has driven the continuous recovery of the demand for machine tool hosts and the sustained growth of the export of machine tool products. The high-end demands in fields such as new energy vehicles, aerospace, and consumer electronics have promoted the structural upgrading of market demands in the machine tool industry. Under the combined effect of various factors, the overall operation of the machine tool industry has continued to recover, and the performance in the second quarter was more stable.
The report mentioned that in the first half of the year, the year-on-year declines in operating income, total profit and profit margin of the machine tool industry all narrowed further. Among them, the operating income in the second quarter increased by 0.6% year-on-year and 14.9% quarter-on-quarter. The total profit decreased by only 1.2% year-on-year, but increased by as much as 122.6% quarter-on-quarter. The profit margin remained basically unchanged year-on-year and increased by 1.2 percentage points quarter-on-quarter. Analysts say that the impetus for recovery comes from both exports and domestic demand, among which the driving force of exports is stronger.
Since the beginning of this year, the total import and export volume of machine tool products has been on the rise, and the growth rate has been expanding. Among them, imports ended the downward trend since the first quarter of 2022 and turned to growth. Exports continued to grow, and the growth rate expanded. In the second quarter, the import of machine tools and tools increased by 5.8% year-on-year and 12.3% quarter-on-quarter. Exports increased by 10.3% year-on-year and 10.7% month-on-month. In addition, from the growth rate and ranking changes of the export volume of the destination countries, it can be seen that the demand for machine tool products in Southeast Asian countries due to industrialization is quite strong.
With the continuous implementation of macro support policies and the pull of demand in emerging high-end application fields, high-tech and high-quality products in the machine tool industry may embrace new market opportunities. In the second half of 2025, the machine tool industry as a whole is expected to operate steadily.
Source: Shanghai Securities News
