A piece of data in 2025 caused an uproar in the industry.
Preliminary results released by the German Machine Tool Manufacturers Association show that China’s machine tool export share reached 21.6%, while Germany’s was only 16.7%.
Germany, which has held the top spot for many years, was surpassed by China. This change has attracted widespread attention.
Some people speculate that this may be just a temporary trend, but industry veterans say that this is not a temporary trend, but a major change in the industry structure.
Machine tools, also known as industrial mother machines, are core equipment for processing various parts and components through cutting, forming and other processes.
It covers all scenarios from basic machinery manufacturing to high-end precision processing, and its technical level directly determines the core competitiveness of a country’s manufacturing industry.
Unlike ordinary production equipment, the accuracy, stability and efficiency of machine tools directly affect the quality and mass production capabilities of downstream products.
Whether it is the engine block of a car, the blades of a wind turbine, or medical devices such as artificial hip joints, they are all inseparable from the precise processing of machine tools.
For a long time, Germany has occupied a leading position in the world in the field of machine tools.
With its exquisite manufacturing processes and high-end technology, Germany has become the “leader” in global machine tool exports. Its products occupy an important share of the global high-end machine tool market with high reliability and high precision.
Data from the German Machine Tool Manufacturers Association shows that German machine tool exports have previously ranked first in the world for many years and are one of the core pillars of German industrial exports. The machine tool industry is also regarded as a leading indicator of Germany’s overall economic development.
It is worth mentioning that the mobile phone lens has a deep binding relationship with the machine tool.
Bernhard’s statement that “without machine tools, you cannot make a mobile phone lens” is not an exaggeration.
The core component of the seemingly compact mobile phone lens is a high-precision optical lens whose processing accuracy must reach nanometer levels. This stringent requirement can only be met by high-end machine tools.
Mobile phone lens lenses need to go through multiple precision processes such as cutting, grinding, and polishing. Each process is inseparable from the precise control of special machine tools. Once the accuracy of the machine tool is insufficient, it will lead to blurred images and poor light transmittance of the lens, which cannot meet the needs of mobile phone shooting.
In 2025, the global machine tool industry pattern will usher in a historic change.
For the first time, China surpassed Germany and became the world’s largest exporter of machine tools. This change has attracted widespread attention from the global industry.
The German Machine Tool Manufacturers Association quoted official preliminary statistics as showing that China’s machine tool exports accounted for 21.6% of the global machine tool export business in 2025, while Germany only accounted for 16.7%. The development trends of the two countries are completely opposite.
Specifically, China’s machine tool exports will increase by 18% year-on-year in 2025, continuing to maintain a rapid growth trend, while the exports of local German manufacturers will decrease by 10% year-on-year, showing an obvious downward trend.
In fact, China’s rise in the field of machinery and equipment manufacturing has long been apparent.
In 2020, China’s machinery and equipment exports have ranked first in the world. As a core segment in the field of machinery and equipment, machine tools have reached the top this time, marking that China’s manufacturing industry has achieved a leap from scale expansion to technological breakthrough.
Data in 2023 show that the output value of machine tools made in China accounts for 32.1% of the total global machine tool output value, and the consumption accounts for 32.5% of the total global consumption. China has long become the world’s largest machine tool producer and consumer.
The core of Chinese machine tools’ ability to reach the top of the world lies in continuous technological innovation and product structure upgrades.
Previously, the domestic machine tool industry had the problem of being “big but not strong”. There was sufficient production capacity for mid- to low-end products, but high-end products and core components relied on imports, especially high-end CNC systems, which have long been monopolized by European, American and Japanese companies.
As the “brain” of the machine tool, the CNC system directly determines the accuracy and intelligence level of the machine tool.
In recent years, domestic enterprises have increased investment in R&D and gradually broken through core technology bottlenecks.
The “Huazhong 10” intelligent CNC system launched by Huazhong CNC and Huazhong University of Science and Technology is the first in the world to deeply integrate AI chips and AI large models, achieving a closed-loop leap from “rigid control” to “perception-learning-decision-control”, marking that my country’s CNC system technology has reached the international advanced level.
As a leader in high-end five-axis machine tools, Code CNC has built a dual R&D system of “high-end CNC systems + high-end machine tools”. The independent matching rate of core components is as high as 85%, and the localization rate of complete machines exceeds 90%. More than 40 types of high-end equipment have been used in high-end manufacturing fields such as aerospace engine blades and spacecraft precision components.
With the improvement of technical strength, the international competitiveness of domestic machine tools continues to increase, and the export market layout continues to be optimized, forming a diversified development pattern.
At present, Chinese machine tools are not only exported to emerging markets such as Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, but are also gradually breaking through traditional high-end markets such as Europe, the United States, and Japan, and expanding market share globally.
Benefiting from the increased demand for equipment brought about by the transfer of local industries, China’s machine tool exports to Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries continue to grow rapidly.
Even in the German domestic market, Chinese machine tool companies are growing extremely rapidly and have now become the fourth largest supplier of machine tools to Germany, behind Switzerland, Italy and Japan.
The recognition of domestic machine tools in the global market lies not only in cost-effectiveness, but also in the improvement of technical level. Especially in fields such as CNC machine tools and laser cutting equipment, domestic products have reached the level of similar international products and have become an important source of global high-end equipment procurement.
