While the year-on-year comparison suffers from particularly challenging baselines, the quarter-on-quarter perspective offers a picture of strong recovery.
In the period between April and June 2026, order intake for Italian textile machinery manufacturers showed mixed but encouraging signals for the second half of the year. The order index at constant prices stood at 46.6 points (taking 2021=100 as the base year), showing a slight decrease of 3 per cent compared to the same quarter of 2025. This trend was largely due to the contraction recorded in the domestic market, which fell by 25 per cent compared to the corresponding period of the previous year. Looking at the overall balance sheet for the first six months of 2026, total orders posted a 4 per cent decline compared to the first half of 2025, split between -11 per cent in Italy and -3 per cent abroad.
While the year-on-year comparison suffers from particularly challenging baselines, the quarter-on-quarter perspective offers a picture of strong recovery. Compared to the first quarter of 2026 (January–March), total order intake surged by 25 per cent, driven by a lively rebound in both domestic (+39 per cent) and international (+23 per cent) demand.
On the operational front, the total backlog accumulated by companies currently guarantees about 3.5 months of assured production, while the capacity utilization rate stood at 79.7 per cent.
Analyzing the dynamics of individual production sectors compared to the first quarter of the year, order trends in the domestic market were growing or stationary across all segments, with sharp increases in spinning and weaving. In international markets, positive growth prevailed particularly in the weaving, knitting, and finishing sectors.
Regarding sales forecasts for the third quarter of 2026, company expectations point to substantial stability in volumes compared to the previous period; caution prevails in the domestic market, while expectations on foreign markets are balanced between increases and decreases, reflecting cautious optimism.
Marco Salvadè, president of ACIMIT, commented: “Despite the international uncertainty, it is comforting that the indicator, albeit slightly, is positive in the foreign market, given that about 80 per cent of our order intake comes from international countries. The context of the domestic market is different, as it suffers both from comparison with a positive second quarter of 2025 and from the new 2026-2028 hyper-depreciation incentive launched in June, whose effects are not yet visible in terms of investments.”