History in Numbers: Japan's Machine Tool Output, NC Ratio and Export Ratio, 1933–2025 (Japanese Machine Tool Archive)

Output: 1954–2025 (¥100 million, nominal)

Annual output of machine tools (metal-cutting machine tools). From a few billion yen in the 1950s, it rose with rapid economic growth to 319.3 billion yen in 1970, passed 1 trillion yen for the first time in 1985 on the back of NC and exports, and reached 1.3034 trillion yen in 1990. In 2009 the Lehman Shock cut it to less than 40% of the previous year. On a linear scale the 1950s and 60s are hard to see, so you can switch to the Log scale view.

Dark bars = values given in units of ¥100 million; light bars = values rounded to ¥1 billion (years in 1986–2005 for which no value in ¥100 million was found); short gray lines on the axis = years whose value we could not confirm. ★ = events from the chapter timelines (click to open the chapter timeline). Sources are in the table below

Values and sources by year (61 years)

Year	Output (¥100 million)	Notes	Sources
1954Showa 29	54.4	5,435.63 million yen (the postwar high at the time)	[1, frame 107][2, frame 42]
1955Showa 30	37		[2, frame 18]
1956Showa 31	72		[2, frame 18]
1957Showa 32	150		[2, frame 18]
1959Showa 34	243		[1, frame 107]
1960Showa 35	451	8.3 times 1954	[1, frame 107]
1962Showa 37	1,009	over 100 billion yen for the first time	[3, frame 8][4, frame 10]
1965Showa 40	703	the 1965 (Showa 40) recession	[5, frame 3][3, frame 4][4, frame 10]
1967Showa 42	1,260		[3, frame 8]
1968Showa 43	1,765	up 40% year on year	[3, frame 4]
1969Showa 44	2,394	up 36% year on year	[5, frame 3]
1970Showa 45	3,193	the highest up to the end of the 1960s	[4, frame 10][6, frame 436]
1974Showa 49	3,586	a peak around the oil shock	[7, frame 7]
1975Showa 50	2,307	65% of the previous year	[7, frame 7][4, frame 10]
1976Showa 51	2,268		[4, frame 10]
1977Showa 52	3,128		[7, frame 7]
1981Showa 56	8,513		[2, frame 43]
1982Showa 57	7,828	down 8.1% year on year	[2, frame 43]
1983Showa 58	7,023	down 10.3% year on year	[2, frame 43]
1984Showa 59	8,815	up 25.5% year on year	[2, frame 43]
1985Showa 60	10,511	over 1 trillion yen for the first time	[4, frame 10][2, frame 43][8]
1986Showa 61	8,990 (rounded to ¥1 billion)		[8]
1987Showa 62	6,890 (rounded to ¥1 billion)		[8]
1988Showa 63	8,811		[2, frame 43][8]
1989Heisei 1	11,392	up 29.3% year on year	[2, frame 43][8]
1990Heisei 2	13,034	still the all-time annual record	[2, frame 43][9][8]
1991Heisei 3	12,660 (rounded to ¥1 billion)		[8]
1992Heisei 4	8,310 (rounded to ¥1 billion)		[8]
1993Heisei 5	5,930 (rounded to ¥1 billion)		[8]
1994Heisei 6	5,540 (rounded to ¥1 billion)		[8]
1995Heisei 7	6,990 (rounded to ¥1 billion)		[8]
1996Heisei 8	8,370 (rounded to ¥1 billion)		[8]
1997Heisei 9	10,170 (rounded to ¥1 billion)		[8]
1998Heisei 10	10,110 (rounded to ¥1 billion)		[8]
1999Heisei 11	7,390 (rounded to ¥1 billion)		[8]
2000Heisei 12	8,150 (rounded to ¥1 billion)		[8]
2001Heisei 13	7,760 (rounded to ¥1 billion)		[8]
2002Heisei 14	5,850 (rounded to ¥1 billion)		[8]
2003Heisei 15	6,900 (rounded to ¥1 billion)		[8]
2004Heisei 16	8,780 (rounded to ¥1 billion)		[8]
2005Heisei 17	11,100 (rounded to ¥1 billion)		[10]
2006Heisei 18	12,112.3		[11]
2007Heisei 19	13,031.6		[11]
2008Heisei 20	12,491.8		[11]
2009Heisei 21	4,862.8	revised from 490.3 billion yen in the 2010 annual report	[12]
2010Heisei 22	8,130	revised from 834.1 billion yen in the 2010 annual report	[12]
2011Heisei 23	11,493.9		[12]
2012Heisei 24	11,519.8		[12]
2013Heisei 25	8,863.7		[12]
2014Heisei 26	11,862.9		[12]
2015Heisei 27	12,580.9		[12]
2016Heisei 28	10,128.1		[12]
2017Heisei 29	11,298.2		[12]
2018Heisei 30	12,367.9		[12]
2019Reiwa 1	10,724.5		[12]
2020Reiwa 2	7,239.9		[12]
2021Reiwa 3	8,954.1		[12]
2022Reiwa 4	10,788.3		[12]
2023Reiwa 5	10,517.9		[12]
2024Reiwa 6	9,013.4		[12]
2025Reiwa 7	9,826.5		[12]

Prewar and wartime: 1933–1944 (¥10,000)

Output bottomed out in 1931 (Showa 6), recovered with military demand and peaked at 723 million yen a year in 1944 (Showa 19). These figures were compiled differently from postwar statistics and in a different unit (¥10,000), so they are shown in a separate chart. The values are figures given in the text of Chokki Toshiaki (1963), and many of them are rounded, such as "about 200 million yen" (light bars).

Light bars = values the text rounds with "about" or "over"; dark bars = values as given. Short gray lines = years whose value we could not confirm

Values and sources by year

Year	Output (¥10,000)	Notes	Sources
1933Showa 8	about 1,000	"recovered to the level of 10 million yen a year"	[1, frame 61]
1937Showa 12	about 5,000		[1, frame 73]
1938Showa 13	about 20,000		[1, frame 73]
1939Showa 14	about 27,000		[1, frame 73]
1940Showa 15	about 31,000	"exceeding 310 million yen"; 29.5 times 1933	[1, frame 73]
1944Showa 19	72,300	the prewar and wartime high	[1, frame 61]

NC ratio: share of NC machine tools in output (%)

It was 7.8% in 1970, passed 50% in 1981 and reached 75.7% in 1990. Today it is over 90%, and non-NC machine tools make up less than a tenth. For the 1970s and 80s only the years given in the sources are shown, and 1992–2005 could not be confirmed.

Lines join only runs of consecutive years with values (the line is broken where years are missing). Open dots = values the sources describe as "about" or "just over". Short gray lines = years from 1970 on whose value we could not confirm

Values and sources by year (28 years)

Year	%	Notes	Sources
1970	7.8		[2, frame 45]
1975	about 17	about 17% (passed 15% in 1973; jmtba10y frame 45)	[13]
1977	about 26	"just over 26%"; 5,436 NC machines, 80.5 billion yen	[7, frame 8]
1978	29.4	passed 20% in 1976	[2, frame 45]
1980	about 50	about 50% (it passed 50% in 1981; jmtba10y frame 21)	[13]
1982	53.9		[2, frame 45]
1990	75.7	the highest up to the 1990s	[2, frame 45]
1991	72.5		[2, frame 45]
2006	88.4		[11]
2007	90		[11]
2008	87.8		[11]
2009	85.6		[14][12]
2010	82.8		[14][12]
2011	84		[14][12]
2012	90		[14][12]
2013	89.3		[14][12]
2014	90.4		[15]
2015	90.7		[15]
2016	90		[15]
2017	91.1		[15]
2018	90.5		[15]
2019	89.9		[15]
2020	91.2		[15]
2021	93.1		[15]
2022	93.9		[15]
2023	93.1		[15]
2024	93.5		[15]
2025	93.1		[16]

Export ratio: exports as a share of output (%)

The export ratio passed 30% in 1976 and reached just over 44% in 1978. Since 2009 it has been 66–86%, and it was 84.5% in 2024. Exports (Ministry of Finance) include used machines, while output (METI) covers only establishments with 50 or more employees, so this is an "apparent" ratio. 1979–2008 could not be confirmed.

Lines join only runs of consecutive years with values (the line is broken where years are missing). Open dots = values the sources describe as "about" or "just over". Short gray lines = years from 1976 on whose value we could not confirm

Values and sources by year (18 years)

Year	%	Exports (¥100 million)	Output (¥100 million)	Notes	Sources
1978	about 44	—	—	"just over 44%"; it passed 30% in 1976	[2, frame 21]
2009	66.1	3,214	4,863		[12]
2010	74.9	6,086	8,130		[12]
2011	74.4	8,552	11,494		[12]
2012	82.1	9,456	11,520		[12]
2013	86.5	7,665	8,864		[12]
2014	81.1	9,619	11,863		[12]
2015	74.1	9,321	12,581		[12]
2016	65.8	6,665	10,128		[12]
2017	69.6	7,862	11,298		[12]
2018	71.3	8,817	12,368		[12]
2019	68.5	7,351	10,725		[12]
2020	73.1	5,296	7,240		[12]
2021	79.6	7,126	8,954		[12]
2022	79.4	8,571	10,788		[12]
2023	79	8,304	10,518		[12]
2024	84.5	7,617	9,013		[12]
2025	86	8,454	9,826		[12]

Orders, domestic and overseas: 2009–2025 (¥100 million)

Orders received by members of the Japan Machine Tool Builders' Association (JMTBA), stacked as domestic and overseas. The figure above each bar is the overseas share, which rose from 61% in 2009 to 72.5% in 2025. The annual record for orders is 1.8158 trillion yen in 2018. We could confirm these statistics year by year only from 2009 on.

Annual totals (member orders) from JMTBA's Key Machine Tool Statistics. We checked for each year that domestic + overseas = total

Values and sources by year

Year	Total orders	Domestic	Overseas	Overseas share	Sources
2009	4,118	1,596	2,522	61.2%	[12]
2010	9,786	3,075	6,711	68.6%	[12]
2011	13,262	4,216	9,046	68.2%	[12]
2012	12,124	3,758	8,366	69%	[12]
2013	11,170	4,008	7,162	64.1%	[12]
2014	15,094	4,964	10,130	67.1%	[12]
2015	14,806	5,862	8,944	60.4%	[12]
2016	12,500	5,305	7,195	57.6%	[12]
2017	16,456	6,294	10,162	61.8%	[12]
2018	18,158	7,503	10,654	58.7%	[12]
2019	12,299	4,932	7,367	59.9%	[12]
2020	9,018	3,245	5,774	64%	[12]
2021	15,414	5,103	10,311	66.9%	[12]
2022	17,596	6,032	11,564	65.7%	[12]
2023	14,865	4,768	10,097	67.9%	[12]
2024	14,851	4,415	10,436	70.3%	[12]
2025	16,043	4,409	11,635	72.5%	[12]

Japan in the world

In machine tool output, Japan passed West Germany to become No. 3 in the world in 1969, and passed the US to become No. 1 in 1982. It stayed No. 1 for 27 years until 2008, and China has been No. 1 since 2009. Few of the countries' output values could be confirmed in primary sources, so only the rankings are given here.

Yellow band = the period when Japan was No. 1 in the world. Rankings for 1950–1968 and 1970–1981 are not checked here

1969Passes West Germany to become the world's No. 3 producer, after the US and USSR[5, frame 3]
1982Passes the US to become No. 1 in the world by output, a position held for 27 years[2, frame 21][9]
2009China becomes the world's largest producer[9]
2024 surveyIn US-based Gardner's world survey (2024 edition), China is No. 1 for the 15th straight year, Germany No. 2 and Japan No. 3 (per JMTBA materials)[15]

Breaks in the statistics and how to read them

Nominal valuesEvery year is in that year's yen, with no adjustment for inflation. If you compare 1950s amounts directly with today's, today's look larger by however much prices have risen.
Values for 1954–1984 are those given for individual years in the text of JMTBA anniversary histories, business reports and research books (originally from MITI's Machinery Statistics). We did not use figures from tables, so years not mentioned in the text are left blank[2, frame 43][4, frame 10]
For most years in 1986–2005, the values are rounded to ¥1 billion (Historical Statistics of Japan, Japan Statistical Yearbook). For 1985 and 1988–1990 we used values given in units of ¥100 million and confirmed that they match the rounded values[8][10]
The output data come from METI's (formerly MITI's) Current Production Statistics, which count only establishments with 50 or more employees. The 2009 and 2010 values were revised in the 2013 annual report, and we use the newer ones[11][14]
Exports come from the Ministry of Finance's Trade Statistics and include used machines. Output covers only establishments with 50 or more employees, so the export ratio is an "apparent" value[15]
Prewar and wartime values are rounded figures from the text of Chokki (1963), compiled differently from postwar statistics. The unit is also ¥10,000[1, frame 61][1, frame 73]
Calendar year vs. fiscal yearThe values here are for calendar years (Jan–Dec). Company histories also give fiscal-year values (April to the following March); for example, FY1965 is given as 65.3 billion yen (70.3 billion yen for the calendar year).

What we could not confirm

Missing years for output1958, 1961, 1963–1964, 1966, 1971–1973 and 1978–1980. The sources only say things like "in the 200 billion yen range in 1971–72" and "in the 300 billion yen range in 1973–74", so we have not entered them as annual values. They could probably be filled from the supply-and-demand tables in JMTBA's Kosaku kikai tokei yoran (Machine tool statistics handbook), held by the National Diet Library.
Missing years for NC ratio1971–1974, 1976, 1979, 1981, 1983–1989 and 1992–2005 (the sources do say it passed 15% in 1973 and 20% in 1976).
Missing years for export ratio1976–1977 and 1979–2008.
OrdersAnnual totals before 2008 have not been checked on this page.
World rankingWe have not directly confirmed the 1982 overtaking in the US trade journal (American Machinist) or the original Gardner world surveys (we rely on JMTBA materials). Output values for each country are not given either.
PrewarValues for 1930–1932, 1934–1936, 1941–1943 and 1945. They are in Table 34 of Chokki (1963), but we have not yet been able to read the figures in the table.

Sources

Numbers are sequential on this page. For National Diet Library materials, we checked the sentences in the text by full-text search in October 2026 and give the frames used (we did not use figures from tables). Tables from e-Stat, JMTBA and the Statistics Bureau are copied directly from the files or calculated by the method described.

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