Total orders for Japanese manufacturers of metal cutting machine tools showed a quarter-on-quarter decline of -5%; export demand (-6%) fell more rapidly than the home market (-2%) with an export ratio of 70% in the 3rd quarter. Compared to Q3-23, total orders fell by -1%; within this, home orders fell by -9% but exports grew by +3%.
The Japan Machine Tool Builders Association (JMTBA) also publish monthly orders data, although in this case, it is for total business done by Japanese manufacturers rather than the Japanese market; also, it only covers those who build metal cutting machine tools (there is a separate association in Japan for manufacturers of metal forming machines). However, given the relatively low import ratio in Japan, the domestic orders series will be a good guide to the market situation.
As noted above, total orders in the 3rd quarter of 2024 quarter were -5% lower than in the previous period and -1% down on a year earlier. The total for the first nine months of the year shows a reduction of -3% compared to the same months (January to September) in 2023 and the rolling 12-month total is -6% lower than in the period from October 2022 to September 2023.
The year-to-date trend for domestic orders shows a stronger decline with a fall of -10% and the rolling 12-month figure is down by -13%. The picture is better for export orders which are up by +1% for the year-to-date total for the first nine months of the year, although the rolling 12-month trend is down by -2%.
The JMTBA report gives a breakdown of the domestic orders by industry and using the comparison between the January to September period of 2024 and 2023, the only sectors to grow were other transport equipment (+26% – mainly aerospace), precision machinery (+10%) and government & public agencies (+47%); the largest reductions were for mould & die customers (-45%) and construction machinery (32%). The largest customer sector by value is industrial machinery (a very wide ranging sector that includes many product groups including construction machinery and mould & die companies); despite the weakness in these two areas, overall orders from this sector only fell by -16%.
Analysis of export orders for the first nine months of 2024 shows a fall of -18% in orders from the UK. By continent, Asian orders grew by +15%, Europe was down by -19% (the EU fell by -17%), with North America in between with a decline of -5%. The largest single country markets for Japanese manufacturers of metal cutting machine tools are China (+16% on 2023 and accounting for 32% of total export orders this year), the USA (-6% and 26% of the total); next on this, but a long way behind in terms of the share of the total are India (+17% / 6% of the total) and Germany (-22% / 4%).
You can access the JMTBA report at https://www.jmtba.or.jp/english/category/machine-tool-orders/ (Jul. 30, 2024) or we can send you the summary of the data – contact Geoff Noon at MTA (email: [email protected]) if you want this analysis. A chart showing the 12-month rolling totals is available to download below.