Machinery: uncertainty in the macroeconomic and geopolitical environment weighs on global sales

The preliminary estimates for global trade in the first quarter of 2026, available in the ExportPlanning Information System, indicate a marked slowdown in global exports of machinery¹.

Significantly worsening cyclical conditions
for global sales of machinery

In particular, when measured at constant prices², in the first three months of the year global exports of machinery showed a slowdown of more than 6 percentage points, declining from a year-on-year +5.1% in the second half of 2025 to an estimated -1.1% year-on-year in the first quarter of the current year.

Moreover, as shown in the table below, this deceleration appears to be widespread across nearly all sectors of capital goods machinery, indicating that the increased uncertainty in the early months of the year has had significant repercussions on the pace of growth in global sales of investment goods for the manufacturing industry.

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

In particular, an analysis of global export data by machinery sectors shows the following trends at constant prices in the first quarter of the year:

• sharp slowdown (double-digit) for the following sectors:
• printing and publishing machinery³: after a second half of 2025 marked by even strong growth performances (+10.2% year-on-year), in the first quarter of the year global exports of the sector fell well into negative territory (-8.7% compared to the corresponding period of 2025), with a deceleration of nearly 19 percentage points;
• semiconductor manufacturing machinery⁴: in the first half of the year, global exports of the sector, following the positive trend recorded in 2025 (+3.7% year-on-year in the second half of the year), experienced a sharp contraction, amounting to almost 13 percentage points compared to the corresponding period of 2025, with an overall deceleration of nearly 17 percentage points;
• metalworking machinery⁵: after the +6.4% year-on-year growth recorded in the second half of 2025, the first three months of the year show a clearly negative result, with a decline in global exports of the sector exceeding 9 percentage points, leading to an overall slowdown of nearly 16 percentage points;
• marked slowdown (though relatively more contained) for the following sectors:
• machine tools for hard materials⁶: the most recent quarter showed a halt in the growth of global exports of the sector (+7% in the second half of 2025), moving into negative territory (-2.4% compared to the first quarter of 2025), with an overall deceleration of more than 9 percentage points;
• extrusion machinery⁷: compared with +4.4% in the second half of 2025, in the first quarter of the year global exports of the sector recorded a slowdown estimated at over 9 percentage points, again moving into negative territory (-4.8%);
• textile machinery⁸: also in this case, the first part of the year showed an overall weakening in the growth of global exports of the sector, estimated at nearly 9 percentage points, bringing year-on-year growth from +9.9% in the second half of 2025 to +1.2% in the most recent quarter;
• mild slowdowns, on the other hand, for the following sectors:
• metal machine tools⁹: the first quarter of the year, although weaker than the performance recorded in the second half of 2025, still confirmed global exports of the sector in positive territory (+3.4% compared to the corresponding period of 2025);
• paper-making machinery¹⁰: in the first quarter of 2026, global exports of the sector recorded a slight worsening in the pace of year-on-year growth compared to the second half of the previous year;
• other special-purpose machinery¹¹: while remaining in positive year-on-year growth (+4%), in the first quarter of the year global exports of the sector slowed by 1.6 percentage points compared to the trend recorded in the second half of 2025;
• by contrast, accelerating year-on-year performances were observed in the following sectors:
• packaging machinery¹²: the first quarter of the year showed an improvement of nearly 4 percentage points in the pace of growth—already positive in the second half of 2025—bringing year-on-year growth to a notable +8.6%;
• food processing machinery¹⁰: after a second half of 2025 characterized by moderate growth (+1.2%), in the first quarter of 2026 global exports of the sector experienced an acceleration of over 3 percentage points, reaching a year-on-year growth rate of +4.3%.

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

Global trade data for the first quarter of the year indicate a significant deterioration in the cyclical conditions of global exports of machinery, albeit with varying intensity and dynamics across individual sectors.
The high degree of heterogeneity in sectoral performance also highlights, for exporting firms, the strategic importance of continuous monitoring of market conditions, both in terms of demand and the dynamics of key competitors within the relevant product/strategic business area, in order to best support their international positioning.

With the aim of enabling constant monitoring of its foreign markets at a "product-specific" level, ExportPlanning provides Market Insights, a series of "on-demand" information services, specifically designed to support the market intelligence and budgeting processes of exporting companies.