Our colleagues at AMT report that orders for machine tools in the US market fell by -46% compared to the December 2025 figures, but this was an all-time record month so the more meaningful trend is that the latest figure was +24% higher than a year ago. Demand for cutting tools were +3% higher than in December and +10% up on the January 2025 figure.
The US Manufacturing Technology Orders (USMTO) programme tracks orders in the US market and reports the totals from participants in the survey. As noted above, the exceptional figure in December 2025 meant that a large month-on-month fall was inevitable at the start of 2026 but the strong growth compared to the first month of last year is an indicator that the market is still growing. The rolling 12-month totals actually accelerated from the December figure to reach +24% and the total is the highest since October 2022.
The notes on the AMT website (see below for a link) point out that although the value of orders was much higher than in January 2025 and the best for this month of the year since 2022, the number of units ordered was the lowest since 2010. While most industries recorded lower orders than in December, an exception was “motor vehicle transmission and powertrain parts” where orders were at their highest since April 2015 as the automotive OEM’s move away from electric vehicles and back to internal combustion and hybrid vehicles.
With only 1 month of data for the year, the regional trends are less meaningful but it is worth noting that all six regions had higher orders than in January 2025. While the growth rate in the North-Central-West and North-East regions were relatively modest, it was over +20% in the South-Central, above +30% for the West and in excess of +40% for the South-East and North-Central-West areas.
The US Cutting Tool Market Report (CTMR) tracks orders for tooling on a similar basis. It is also on an upward trend, although not quite as dramatic as the machine tool market, with the 12-month rolling total only +4% ahead of where it was a year earlier. However, following a modest dip in this rolling total up to the middle of 2025, this improvement means that the 12 months to January 2026 set a new record high valuation (note that this is at current prices, so at least some of this growth will be driven by inflation).
No indications of specific industries are given in this month’s report but they do note that the price of tungsten carbide raw materials continues to increase.
You can download the press releases for the two surveys from the AMT web-site at https://www.amtonline.org/topic/intelligence, with the CTMR release also published on the USCTI web-site at www.uscti.com (go to the News tab); alternatively, you can request either or both releases from MTA and we can make sure you get them when they are published each month.