World Exports of Mechanical Engineering: Best/Worst International Markets in H1-2024

Mechanical Engineering: best/worst international markets in H1-2024

World trade data for the first half of 2024, available in the ExportPlanning Quarterly World Trade Datamart, allow to analyze the outlook of Mechanical Engineering¹ international sales.

The graph above highlights the uncertainty that has occurred in the last year and a half in global exports of Mechanical Engineering: the levels recorded in the second quarter of 2024 are similar to those of the last quarter of 2022. In essence, the last eighteen months have shown overall stability in global sales of the industry in question.
With reference to the first half of the current year, the balance is of a very weak Year-over-Year growth: +1.6% in euro values; +1.9% at constant prices.

In this context, it is very useful to be able to identify the international markets that are offering the most favorable contributions to the growth of global sales of Mechanical Engineering.

World Exports of Mechanical Engineering:
best/worst international markets in the first semester of 2024

As documented in the table above, in the first half of the year, in the face of declines in China (-939 million euros compared to the first half of 2023) and Russia (-621 million euros), the United States recorded (with over 2.2 billion euros) the largest increase in terms of sales from the world of Mechanical Engineering.
Following this, there was the trend growth of global exports of the industry to Brazil (+1.6 billion euros), although decelerating in the most recent quarter.

Also noteworthy are the growths - although with trend increases of less than one billion euros - of global sales of Mechanical Engineering to Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, India and Saudi Arabia.

US market of Mechanical Engineering: main driving States in H1-2024

The data updated to the first half of 2024 of US foreign trade, available at the American State level in the Quarterly Trade of American States Datamart, allow to document the most dynamic geographical areas within the US market, in terms of imports of Mechanical Engineering.

The following table shows the US states that recorded the highest trend increases in the first half of 2024: above all, Texas² stands out as the main driving state for US imports of Mechanical Engineering (+580 million euros compared to the corresponding half of 2023, accelerating in the most recent quarter).
Behind it, the highest trend increases are recorded for imports from the world of Mechanical Engineering of Georgia³, Michigan⁴ and Indiana (respectively +477, +376 and +372 million euros compared to the first half of 2023).

US Imports of Mechanical Engineering:
main driving States in the first semester of 2024

We also note the growth performance of imports from the world of Mechanical Engineering and the like of Mississippi (+332 million euros compared to the first half of 2023, and in clear acceleration in the most recent quarter), Ohio⁵ (+246 million euros, also improving in the most recent quarter), South Carolina (+231 million euros), Kentucky (+229 million euros) and North Carolina⁶ (+212 million euros).

Conclusions

The data on international trade in Mechanical Engineering document as in the first half of 2024, within a demand context characterized by an ongoing uncertainty, the US market has by far made the largest contributions to the Y-o-Y growth of global sales, with an increase of over 2.2 billion euros compared to the corresponding half of 2023.

The analysis of the data on US imports of Mechanical Engineering at the State level also allows us to identify some geographical areas (Texas, above all: the most dynamic American market in the first half of the year and the leading importer at the US level in the last 4 quarters) in a phase of significant growth in the first half of 2024.

For exporters of Mechanical Engineering, the possibility of monitoring "in real time" a market of strategic importance (by far the first in the world in terms of value of 2023 imports of Mechanical Engineering [with 94.7 billion euros]⁷), at the level of State and country of origin, at a sector/business area/product level, can allow you to better support and orient your marketing and commercial strategies.