Our colleagues at AMT note that although machine tool orders in the US market fell compared to December, they were higher than at the start of 2024 and +16% above the average for January. We see the opposite for the tooling market where orders increased compared to December (due to seasonal effects) but were lower than in January 2024.
The US Manufacturing Technology Orders (USMTO) programme tracks orders in the US market, based on the reports from participants in the survey. Orders in January 2025 were down by -30% compared to December 2024 but were +6% higher than in January 2024.
The decline compared to the previous month was led by contract machine shops (the largest customer industry in the survey) which had seen strong orders in the last few months of 2024 but which fell by nearly one-third at the start of 2025. There were also significant month-on-month declines in orders from the aerospace and automotive industries but medical manufacturers had their strongest month since September 2023.
With only one month of the year at this stage, the natural volatility makes the regional data relatively meaningless but we will note that there were increases in orders compared to January 2024 for the West and North-East areas, a broadly unchanged picture in the North-Central-East and declines in the South-East, South-Central and North-Central-West regions.
The US Cutting Tool Market Report (CTMR) tracks orders for tooling on a similar basis; as noted above, this market is moving in the opposite direction, with a continuation of the gentle but steady decline since the peak in May 2024. Orders were higher than in December but this is due to the seasonal weakness that always affects the tooling market at the end of the year and the reduction compared to January 2024 is the important trend.
The notes which come alongside this data suggest that most major industrial end markets have become cautious with inventory reductions in some sectors running alongside a general uncertainty, both politically and economically. It remains to be seen whether the tariff policy succeeds in its objective of re-shoring manufacturing back to the US.
You can download the press releases for the two surveys from the AMT web-site at https://www.amtonline.org/topic/intelligence, with the CTMR release also published on the USCTI web-site at www.uscti.com (go to the News tab); alternatively, you can request either or both releases from MTA and we can make sure you get them when they are published each month.