"Incoming orders from Germany (- 13.9%) fell almost as sharply as they increased from abroad (+ 14.0%)," said ZVEI economic expert Peter Giehl. Customers from the eurozone ordered 27.4% more in June than a year ago. The increase in orders from third countries amounted to 6.7 %.

In the overall period from January to June 2022, incoming orders exceeded the previous year's figure by 12.7%. Domestic orders improved by 10.4% and foreign orders by 14.5%. Business partners from the eurozone increased their orders by 19.0% in the first six months of this year. New orders from outside the eurozone were 12.1% higher than in the previous year.

Price-adjusted domestic production of electrical and electronic goods in June 2022 was 2.0% down on the previous year. Cumulatively from January to June, it exceeded its corresponding 2021 level by 1.8%.

In June 2022, the German electrical and digital industry generated turnover of €18.5 billion - a nominal increase of 4.1% compared to the previous year. Domestic sales increased by 5.3% to €8.8 billion and sales with customers from abroad by 3.0% to €9.7 billion. Business with partners from the eurozone declined slightly in June (- 0.7% to EUR 3.5 billion), while sales with customers from third countries increased (+ 5.2% to EUR 6.2 billion).

In the first half of 2022 as a whole, aggregated industry revenue increased by 9.0% year-on-year to € 105.9 billion. Revenue with foreign customers (+6.4% to EUR 55.7 billion) was five and a half billion euros higher than revenue with domestic business partners (+12.1% to EUR 50.2 billion). Between January and June, 20.3 billion euros were generated with the eurozone - an increase of 3.9%. Sales with customers from third countries amounted to 35.4 billion euros, up 7.9% on the first half of 2021.

At 88.3%, capacity utilization in the industry was slightly higher at the start of the third quarter of 2022 than three months previously (87.9%). At the same time, the order backlog fell slightly from 5.7 to 5.6 (production) months. Only 10% of companies reported too few orders. In contrast, 89% continue to be affected by supply bottlenecks (material shortages, logistics problems, etc.). Accordingly, production plans have recently been revised downwards again. On balance, however, they remain positive. Almost half of companies (48%) are complaining about a shortage of skilled workers.

"After a slight increase in the previous month, the business climate in the German electrical and digital industry fell in July," says Giehl. Both the assessment of the current situation and general business expectations deteriorated significantly compared to the previous month.

Export expectations in July also fell short of the June figure. The balance of companies that expect deliveries abroad to increase or decrease over the next three months fell from plus ten percentage points in June to plus six points now.