Italian packaging machinery: revenue +0.9%, orders -4.7% in 9M 2026

Italian packaging machinery growth slows, with revenue up 0.9% in the first nine months

Domestic demand supports sales, while overseas markets weaken and order intake falls 4.7%, according to MECS-UCIMA data

AI Newsroom 2 min readPublished on this site: 03 Nov 2026, 11:19Original publication: 03 Nov 2026, 10:24

Generic industrial packaging machine in a neutral factory environment

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Three key points

01Sector revenue rose 0.9% in the first nine months of 2026 versus the same period of 2025.
02Domestic sales increased 11.8%, while foreign sales slipped 0.6%.
03Order intake declined 4.7%, and backlog moved from 7.7 to 7.4 months of guaranteed production.

Why this matters · AI editorial analysis, not reported fact

For OEMs, subcontractors and capital-equipment buyers, weaker order intake points to more cautious investment behavior, especially outside Italy. That can affect capacity planning, procurement timing and workload visibility across machining and equipment supply chains.

Italy’s packaging and wrapping machinery industry lost momentum in the first nine months of 2026. According to the MECS Study Centre’s business survey for UCIMA, sector revenue increased by 0.9% from the same period a year earlier, down from the 2.3% rise recorded in the first half. Compared with 2025, when the industry closed with a record turnover of €10.46 billion and 4% growth, the latest figures confirm a slower expansion trend.

The domestic market remained the main support for sales. Over the first nine months, revenue generated in Italy rose by 11.8%, while sales in foreign markets edged down by 0.6%. In the third quarter alone, the gap widened further, with domestic sales up 10.5% and foreign sales down 4.2%. That trend matters especially for a sector with a strong export profile: according to UCIMA’s final 2025 figures, international sales reached €8.19 billion, accounting for 78.3% of total turnover.

The clearest warning sign came from order intake. From January to September 2026, total orders fell 4.7%, driven mainly by a 5.4% decline in foreign demand, while orders from the Italian market increased 2.3%. This was also worse than the first-half reading, when order intake was down 2.5%, suggesting that demand softened further in the third quarter.

Backlog remained at what the survey described as relatively solid levels, but it declined from 7.7 months of guaranteed production in June to 7.4 months in September. At the same time, after-sales services accounted for 20.9% of total sector revenue, highlighting the contribution of service activities to the industry’s overall revenue mix.

UCIMA president Maurizio Bertocco said the first nine months’ performance and the slowdown in order intake were a cause for concern, despite the sector’s underlying resilience. According to the association’s reading, the Italian market has benefited in the last two quarters from the effects of hyper-depreciation incentives, while geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainty abroad are making it harder for customer companies to plan investments in new plants and technologies.

The article also compares packaging machinery with the machine tool sector. Based on quarterly indices published by UCIMU, order intake among Italian machine tool builders was down by about 4.2% in the first nine months of 2026, close to the 4.7% decline seen in packaging machinery. The drivers differ, however: packaging still shows growth in domestic demand, while machine tools recorded a 30% drop in home-market orders, only partly offset by a 13.4% increase in foreign orders.