Electrical Engineering: one of the fastest-growing industrie in international trade 2025

The 2025 preliminary world trade figures, available in the ExportPlanning Information System, highlighted the growth potential of global sales od Electrical Engineering¹.

Global sales of Electrical Engineering also maintained a sustained growth rate in Q4 2025, leading to an average annual result of nearly +8% at constant prices...

In the most recent quarter (Q4-2025), global electrical engineering exports showed a trend growth of +7.3% at constant prices, in line with the experience of the first half of the year.

In the preliminary 2025 figures, global electrical engineering sales recorded an growth of nearly 8 percentage points (at constant prices), a significant acceleration compared to 2024 (-0.2%).

.. at the sector level...

The table below shows the 2024-2025 performance of world exports of Electrical Engineering by sector. The sectoral picture highlights improved results for 2025 (measured at constant prices) compared to 2024 for most of the sectors examined, demonstrating a generally favorable framework for the entire industry.

World Exports of Electrical Engineering: Y-o-Y % changes at constant prices

Within the electrical engineering industry, the following performances in 2025 are particularly noteworthy:

• strongly accelerated global sales of Electricity Distribution and Control Apparatus² (an average annual increase of 12.4 percentage points in 2025, maintaining the favorable trend already seen in 2024), Electrical Switchboards³ (an average annual increase of over 12 percentage points in the 2025 average, significantly improving the 2024 result - which was also a growth figure - [+5.5%]), Electrical Generators and Transformers⁴ (+9.3%), Electrical Cables and Panels⁵ (+5.9%), Parts for Electrical Equipment⁶ (up by more than 6 percentage points compared to 2024, marking a marked improvement compared to the previous year) and Other Electrical Equipment⁷ (+4.1% compared to 2024);
• on the other hand, there was a deterioration compared to an already unfavorable 2024 for global sales of Lamps and parts of lamps and Lighting⁸ (an average annual decline of almost 7 percentage points and a deterioration in the most recent).

.. but with strong differences among competing countries.

Despite an overall positive picture, within the list of the main global exporters of electrical engineering, performances for 2025 are highly differentiated:

• sales from Vietnam (+21.1% measured at constant prices), China (+9.5%), Czech Republic (+8.6%), Germany (+8.2%), France (+5.9%) and Mexico (+3.9%) are growing, even strongly;
• sales from South Korea (+1.7%, at constant prices), Italy (+1.3%), Japan (+0.5%) and, above all, United States (-1.7%).

Conclusions

The dynamics (including the most recent ones) for 2025 point to an accelerating global export environment for electrical engineering, one of the most dynamic industries measured at constant prices.

However, the picture of widespread growth in results at the sector level is more pronounced at the level of competitor countries, with marked performance differentiation.
This latter evidence suggests to an exporting company the strategic utility of continuously monitoring market conditions, both in terms of demand and the dynamics of its main competitors for its product/strategic business area, in order to best support its international positioning.

The importance of monitoring market conditions
at a "product-specific" level

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.