05.02.202607:21:35UTC+00German Factory Orders Unexpectedly Jump

Germany experienced a significant upswing in factory orders for December 2025, with a robust increase of 7.8% month-on-month. This surge defied widespread market predictions of a 2.2% decline and improved upon November's slightly revised growth of 5.7%. This marked the fourth consecutive month of growth and was the most substantial rise seen since December 2023. The increase was primarily driven by substantial orders in the metal products sector (30.2%) and mechanical engineering (11.5%). Additionally, electric equipment orders saw an uptick of 9.8%, and electronic products rose by 5.7%. Conversely, there was a notable decrease in demand for aircraft, ships, trains, and military vehicles, which plunged by 18.7%, along with a 6.3% downturn in the automotive sector. Analyzing by category, capital goods increased by 10.5%, and intermediate goods expanded by 5.7%, while consumer goods faced a decline of 5.3%. Domestic demand showed a strong increase of 10.7%, and foreign orders rose by 5.6%, driven by a substantial 9.7% increase from non-euro area markets, which offset the 0.6% decrease in the euro area. Excluding large contracts, orders saw a modest 0.9% rise. Looking at the quarterly performance, factory orders increased by 9.5% in Q4, or 2.5% when large contracts were excluded.