Japan's Machine Tool Orders Realize Year-on-Year Growth in October

A few days ago, the Japan Machine Tool Industry Association (JMTBA) announced accurate statistics of machine tool orders for its member units in September 2010. The data show that in September 2010, the total amount of Japanese machine tool orders was 92.011 billion yen, which was 7.2% higher than the previous month's 85.851 billion yen, which was a substantial increase of 113.6% compared with September 2009. The Japanese machine tool orders were realized for 10 consecutive months. The year-on-year data grew rapidly. Among them, the number of orders for CNC machine tools was 82.262 billion yen, which was the same month-on-month, which was a year-on-year increase of 98%. The orders for CNC machine tools accounted for 89.4% of the total orders. In the first three quarters of January-September, the total volume of Japanese machine tool orders totaled 702.907 billion yen, an increase of 173.2% over the same period in 2009.

In September 2010, sales of Japanese machine tools were 99.945 billion yen, a 37.1% increase from the previous quarter and an increase of 80.6% year-on-year; of these, sales of CNC machine tools were 96.202 billion yen, an increase of 80.1% year-on-year. From January to September, Japan’s accumulated sales of machine tools totaled 612.88 billion yen, a year-on-year increase of 30.1%. In September, the balance of orders for machine tools was 472.249 billion yen, a year-on-year increase of 33.4%.

In September, Japan’s domestic orders amounted to 27.717 billion yen, a 5.3% decrease from the previous quarter and an increase of 38.7% year-on-year. In the same period, overseas orders amounted to 64.894 billion yen, a year-on-year increase of 13.4% and a year-on-year increase of 175.9%. The data shows that the recovery rate of Japanese overseas machine tool orders has decreased in recent months, but it is still higher than the growth of domestic orders. From January to September, Japan’s domestic orders totaled 219.968 billion yen, a year-on-year increase of 98%; overseas orders accumulated to 483.209 billion yen, a year-on-year increase of 230.2%.