"The increase in orders in July was the first rise in a good year, albeit on a comparatively low basis," says ZVEI Chief Economist Dr. Andreas Gontermann. The growth in domestic incoming orders (+34.6%) was significantly higher than orders from abroad (+8.9%). Customers from the eurozone increased their orders by 8.1% in July. The increase in orders from countries outside the single currency area amounted to 9.2%.

In the first seven months of this year as a whole, incoming orders were still 10.2% down on the previous year. The industry recorded an 11.0% drop in domestic orders. Orders from foreign business partners fell by 9.5% between January and July. While 7.5% fewer new orders were received from the eurozone than in the same period last year, orders from third countries fell by 10.5%.

Adjusted for price effects, the production of electrical and electronic goods in Germany in July 2024 was still 4.9% down on the previous year. "Nevertheless, the decline was only half as high as the average for the first half of the year," says Gontermann. In the period from January to July, aggregated industry output fell 9.3% short of the previous year's level.

Nominal revenue in the domestic electrical and digital industry amounted to €18.1 billion in July 2024, 2.7% lower than in the previous year. Domestic sales fell by 3.7% to €8.6 billion, while foreign sales fell by 1.8% to €9.5 billion. Sales of 3.3 billion euros were generated with partners from the eurozone in July (- 4.3%). Sales with third countries fell only slightly to 6.2 billion euros (- 0.4%).
In the first seven months of this year, aggregated industry revenue totaled 128.4 billion euros, which was 7.4% below the corresponding figure for the previous year. Industry-wide producer prices between January and July were 1.7% higher than in the same period in 2023.

Domestic and foreign sales fell by 7.8% to €61.5 billion and 7.1% to €66.9 billion respectively between January and July 2024. Here, 24.2 billion euros (- 6.5%) was attributable to business with partners from the eurozone and 42.7 billion euros (- 7.4%) with countries from other currency areas.

"Both companies' production and employment plans recovered somewhat in August 2024 - the former even turned slightly positive again," said Gontermann. At the end of the first half of the year, the German electrical and digital industry had 895,000 employees. Of these, 31,200 are currently on short-time work.

Overall, the business climate in the German electrical and digital industry only moved sideways in August 2024. Although the assessment of the current situation improved compared to July, general business expectations fell again. Export expectations also remained flat in August.