Japan's machine tool orders surge 30% to 166.4 billion yen in March

With the gradual recovery and development of the domestic and foreign economies , driven by the electrification of semiconductors and automobiles , demand for the machine tool industry continues to be strong .

On April 12, according to data released by the Japan Machine Tool Builders' Association ( JMTBA) , Japan's machine tool orders in March reached 166.4 billion yen, an increase of 30.2% over the same period last year , marking 17 consecutive months of growth . The order amount reached the second highest in a single month in history, second only to the order amount of 182.8 billion yen in March 2018 .

Yoshiharu Inaba, president of the Japan Labor Union, said that Japan's machine tool orders are expected to reach 1.65 trillion yen (about 91.5 billion yuan) in 2022.

( Image source: JMTBA )

The growth in orders in Japan was driven by domestic demand , with demand for semiconductor manufacturing equipment continuing to grow . In March, domestic orders in Japan increased by 48.3 %, with an order value of 60 billion yen.

At the same time, with the recovery of the world economy , foreign orders also increased significantly by 21.8% , reaching 106.4 billion yen. Among them, automobile-related orders from China and India increased , and orders from EU countries such as Germany and Italy grew steadily .

With the popularization of 5G technology and the increase in data communication volume, informatization and industrialization are deeply integrated , and the domestic and foreign machine tool markets for semiconductor manufacturing equipment continue to expand.

For China, machine tools are the processing machines of the manufacturing industry and an important foundation of the national economy . At present, the supply and demand of machine tools in China are still at a high level .

The latest data shows that China's output of metal cutting machine tools reached 89,000 units in January-February 2022, a year-on-year increase of 7.2%. The output of metal forming machine tools in the same period was 30,000 units, the same as last year; in January, the amount of Japan's machine tool orders to China increased by 11.2% year-on-year.

Recently, several A-share companies in the machine tool industry have also revealed a positive trend in the industry.

Genesis Machine Tools has sufficient orders for machine tools in 2022, and the company's four factories have been put into operation . The company's machine tool sales in 2021 were about 25,000 units. At the end of 2021, the company had about 7,000 orders (including intentions); in the first quarter of 2022, as of March 7, 2022, the company's new orders on hand (contracts signed) exceeded 4,000 units.

In 2021, Kede CNC produced and put into storage 158 complete machines, a year-on-year increase of 56.44%; new orders worth 332 million yuan were received during the reporting period, a year-on-year increase of 41.79%.

With the in-depth integration of new-generation information technology and manufacturing, the continuous development of industrial Internet, big data and 5G technology , the overall positive trend of the machine tool industry remains unchanged , both at home and abroad .

Machine tool industry