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German machine-tool orders up 14%, production down 7%: what VDW's half-year figures do to your delivery date before AMB and IMTS
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#VDW#German machine tool industry#AMB 2026#IMTS 2026#machine tool orders#press brake

German machine-tool orders up 14%, production down 7%: what VDW's half-year figures do to your delivery date before AMB and IMTS

Uzair bin Haroon

German machine-tool builders booked 14% more orders in the first half of 2026 and shipped 7% fewer machines. Those two numbers, from VDW's own half-year figures dated 31 August, are the delivery date on the German quote sitting in your inbox, and they say the slot is still there. Machines are leaving the halls slower than orders are coming in, and the factories are running at 74%.

I read the nine-page PDF the way I read a machine's spec sheet: for what it does to a part I have to make. Four things fell out. The German order book is filling while the German floor empties. The forming side, presses and brakes, is down a fifth. More than half of what Germany itself installs is now imported, and the growth in that half is Japanese and Korean. And India is now Germany's third-biggest export market for machines. All of that walks into three trade shows next week: IMTS in Chicago from Monday, AMB in Stuttgart from Tuesday, and the Japan International Welding Show in Tokyo from Wednesday. This follows the 8 September piece on VDW's 2025 annual figures; those were last year, these are this year's first read.

CHIRON Group CEO Roman Gaida standing in front of two machining centres in a production hall
From CHIRON Group | AMB 2026 | Highlights mit CEO Roman Gaida by CHIRON Group, a German builder's own preview of what it is taking to Stuttgart next week. Used as a lead; every number here is VDW's.

The book fills, the floor empties

Here is the half-year in one table, straight from page 2 of the PDF. VDW's own note: second-quarter production is an estimate, and "data for the current year are regularly revised upward".

VDW key figure, H1 2026€ millionChange y/yWhat it means at the machine
Order intake6,185+14% (Q1 +15%, Q2 +12%)Two double-digit quarters; project business, not broad demand
  Domestic / foreign orders1,800 / 4,385+16% / +13%Germans ordering again, from a low base
Production, total5,885−7%Book filling faster than it is being cut
  Metal cutting (incl. EDM, laser, AM)3,065−6%Mills, lathes, grinders: slot available
  Metal forming830−20%Presses and brakes: builders are hungry
Exports (excl. install/repair)3,953−6% table / −7% textThe PDF's two bases disagree by a point
Imports1,418−2%Holding up far better than domestic sales (−10%)
Import share of German market52.6%from 46.2% (2025), 45.2% (2024)Highest in the series
Capacity utilisation74.3% avg; 74.7% July−0.8 ptA quarter of German capacity is idle
Employees, June~60,000−6.1%Fewer fitters to build your machine
Companies (≥50 staff)265−4.5%Twelve fewer builders than 2025's average

Compare Japan. On 9 September this site worked through JMTBA's 17-month order book and what it does to a delivery date. Germany is the opposite case. VDW says production is "around one-third in real terms" below the peak years, 60,000 people are building machines against a 2024 average of 65,523, and utilisation has "stabilised at a comparatively low 75 per cent". A builder running at 74% with a rising order book can still give you a date this year. That is the window. It closes when the order growth reaches the floor, which VDW expects "as the year progresses".

The trade press is already rounding this. Machine Maker's 11 September write-up puts the +16% domestic and +13% foreign figures in the second quarter; the PDF has them as first-half totals. Small thing. But if you are pricing a machine off a news story instead of the source, that is the kind of slip that moves a quarter.

Forming is down a fifth, and that is your press brake

The number that stopped me is the −20% on metal forming. Cutting is down 6%. Forming, which is presses, bending and folding machines, punches and wire machines, produced €830m in the half against €1,032m a year ago. VDW's 2025 machinery-group table shows where it was already going: presses €487m (−12%), bending and folding €495m (−12%), punching up 4% on a small base. Forming was the one group that grew in 2024, +4%, and it is now the one that has collapsed.

If you are specifying a press brake or a hydraulic press this year, that is a buyer's table. A German forming builder at −20% will talk about tonnage, controller and tooling packages it would not have discussed at +4%. Ask for the crowning system and the back-gauge axis count as standard, not as options. Ask for the delivery date in writing and expect a short one. And ask what the last twelve months of their order book look like, because the answer tells you whether the machine you are buying is the last of a line.

More than half of what Germany installs is imported, and the growth is Japanese and Korean

This is the line that should interest anyone who has ever been quoted a DN Solutions, a Mazak or a Brother in Pakistan and wondered whether to take the German option instead. The Germans themselves are taking the Japanese and Korean one. Imports held at −2% while domestic sales of German-built machines fell 10%, so the import share of the German market rose to 52.6%, the highest in the PDF's series. VDW's own sentence: "Japanese and South Korean manufacturers, in particular, increased their sales in Germany."

RankSupplier to Germany, H1 2026 (incl. parts)€ millionChange y/yMachines only, change
1Switzerland292.6−5%−8%
2Japan135.3+12%+15%
3Italy134.1−10%−11%
4China105.2−12% (after +22% in 2025)−22%
5South Korea95.6+18%+25%
10Taiwan41.2+5%+2%

Two things in that table. China's run into Germany has stalled: +22% in 2025, −12% now, −22% on machines alone. And Korea on machines alone is +25%, which is why the DN Solutions and HELLER video below matters. Two builders, one Korean and one German, sharing Hall 10 at AMB. For a shop in Sialkot or Karachi the point is simple: the machine the German buyer is choosing over the German machine is the same one you are being offered. The pricing gap you see is real and the Germans see it too.

DN Solutions and HELLER joint AMB 2026 title card showing two outlined machining centres side by side
From When Precision Connects, Intelligence Emerges | HELLER & DN Solutions at AMB 2026 by HELLER Group, Hall 10, booths A31 and A32, per the video's own description.

Where the German machines are going instead of China

Exports to China fell 24% to €497m in the half, and on machines alone 26%. The US took +8% to €824m, now 20.8% of everything Germany exports. France +25%, which VDW puts down to aircraft. And India: +13% including parts to €189m, fourth market overall; excluding parts, +15% to €172m, third market in the world for German machines behind only the US and China. VDW's line on China is the one to remember: "in view of the intense price competition there, the 'local for local' principle is becoming increasingly important". The Germans are building in China for China, and the export line is what is left.

For a Pakistani shop, the India number is the practical one. Your neighbour is buying German machines at a rate that has made it a top-three market, and the used-machine market that follows a big new-machine market is a real thing. Watch the "India Opportunities" seminar at AMB and VDMA India's stand at the International Gallery.

Three shows in five days, and what to look for

ShowDatesScale (organiser's figures)What to watch
IMTS, McCormick Place, Chicago14–19 Sept2,000+ exhibitors, 1.2m sq ft, 90,000 visitors expectedThe US is now 20.8% of German exports; this is where those machines are sold
AMB, Messe Stuttgart15–19 Sept~1,150 exhibitors confirmed at July preview, all ten halls, 120,000 m², 31% foreign from 34 countriesNew "Defence & Security Opportunities" format with VDMA on Wed 16 and Fri 18; AI-in-manufacturing day Wed 16 from 12:00
Japan International Welding Show, Tokyo Big Sight16–19 SeptJapan's largest welding, joining and cutting show, per Lincoln Electric's listingFANUC's AI Welding Agent demo, covered here on 11 September

The AMB defence format is not a sideshow. VDW's customer survey has aerospace at 11% of German machine-tool sales, up five points in two years, and the PDF says "the aerospace and defence sectors are showing particularly strong growth" while automotive has slid to 23%. That is where the +14% is coming from. It is project business, big multi-machine orders with long commissioning, and it is why Bernhard Geis, VDW's head of economics and statistics, says in the statement zerspanungstechnik.de carried on 8 September that "for the all-clear it is still too early" and that "we can only speak of a broad recovery in demand to a limited extent". A shop that machines for automotive suppliers is not in the +14%. A shop that can hold aerospace tolerances on titanium is.

Messe Stuttgart's opening release on Tuesday will carry the final exhibitor count; 1,150 is July's number. AMB's own 2024 show had 1,244 exhibitors from 28 countries, so if Tuesday's figure is under 1,200 the German market is telling you something the order book is not.

What I would do with this on Monday

If you have a German quote for a cutting machine: hold the price, push on delivery, and get it before the order growth reaches the floor. If it is a forming machine: negotiate harder, the builder is at −20%. If you are choosing between a German machine and the Japanese or Korean equivalent: know that German buyers, facing the same choice at home, put 52.6% of their machine-tool spend into imports this half. And whichever you buy, ask the builder what its utilisation was in July. VDW says 74.7%. If the salesman says 95%, one of them is wrong.

Vesprr's workshop quotes CNC milling, turning and fabrication from Pakistan against exactly these machines. If you have a drawing and a deadline, send it over for a quote.

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