World Exports 2025 of Machinary: a preliminary assessment

The preliminary estimates of world trade for the fourth quarter of 2025, available in the ExportPlanning Information System, highlight a partial slowdown in global sales of machinery¹.

Despite a slowing in Q4-2025, global sales of machinery remained in positive territory...

In the most recent quarter (Q4-2025), world exports of machinery confirmed a positive Year-over-Year trend (+3.4%, at constant prices), although slowing compared to the experience of the first nine months of the year (+6.6%).

In the pre-final 2025, world exports of machinery thus recorded an overall Y-o-Y increase (+5.7%, at constant prices), in line with that already experienced the previous year (+6%).

.. closing 2025 with growth (at constant prices)
spread across almost all sectors (albeit at varying intensities).

The table below shows the 2024-2025 performance of world exports of machinery by sectors. The sectoral overview highlights 2025 results of growth—albeit moderate—(measured at constant prices) for almost all the sectors examined.

World Exports of Machinery: Year-over-Year % changes at constant prices

Within the Machinery industry, the following performances are highlighted for 2025:

• Significant average annual growth, measured at constant prices, for global exports of machines for metal processing² (+11.9% in the preliminary 2025 figures), textile machinery³ (+10%), semiconductor manufacturing machines⁴ (+9%), printing machines⁵ (+8.1%) and other special purpose machinery⁶ (+8.1%);
• moderate average annual increases, measured at constant prices, for world exports of packaging machinery⁷ (+4.9%), extrusion machinery⁸ (+4.4%) and, above all, machine tools for hard materials⁹ (+1.9%);
• slightly dynamic, if even slightly negative, trends for world exports of metalworking machine tools¹⁰, food machinery¹¹ (-0.5%) and, above all, paper-making machinery¹² (-1.2%).

Despite moderate growth, European exports of Machinery in 2025 remain – as was the case in 2024 – less dynamic than the global average...

Moreover, the analysis of international sales of Machinery in 2025 confirms, as in 2024, a lower dynamic in European Exports: the preliminary 2025 data for exports of machinery show an average Year-over-Year increase of +3.9% (at constant prices), after +2.9% the previous year.
In essence, the performance of European exporters of the industry, despite moderate growth, is once again less favorable than the global average.

.. in a highly differentiated picture among exporting countries.

In particular, among the main European exporters of Machinery, weak performances in 2025 are noted for Italy (-1.5%, at constant prices), United Kingdom (-1.4%) and - above all - France (-4.5%) and Switzerland (-5.8%), while - on the other hand - German exports held steady (+2.2%) and the positive performance of Dutch exports (+10.1%) and Austrian exports (+14%).

Conclusions

The most recent trends confirm a moderate Y-o-Y growth environment for world exports of Machinery.
However, the high heterogeneity of results at the sector level and, above all, at the level of exporting countries suggests to an exporting company the strategic utility of continuously monitoring market conditions, in terms of demand and the dynamics of the main competitors for the product/strategic business area in question, in order to best support its international positioning.

With the aim of enabling constant monitoring of foreign markets of reference at a "product-specific" level, ExportPlanning offers the Customs Declarations Database service, an "on-demand" supply of monthly market data, customized at the level of customs codes and markets of interest.