Industry in the balance, revenues stuck at 1122 billion in 2025
On average +0.2% at current values thanks to the sprint in the second half of the year, marginal decline at constant values. Cars and Fashion down, Food and Drugs driving growth
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It could have been worse. The recovery of industry in the second half of the year limited the damage and allowed for a partial recovery in 2025. A gain of two decimals, in the industrial sector estimates of Prometeia and Intesa Sanpaolo, which pushes the bar up a little to EUR 1122 billion. Some 40 below the 2022 highs but 210 more if the comparison is with the pre-covid period of 2019.
Growth at replacement cost was achieved entirely in the July-November period (December is estimated), progress of 1.8%, which compares with the 1.3% drop in revenues in the January-June period, penalised by the continuing uncertainty over the drop point of the tariffs announced by Trump, a 'fog' that then cleared in the second half of the year.
While the picture at current values remains almost balanced, taking prices into account, constant values are falling. But even in this case the damage is limited, with a slowdown of less than one percentage point mitigated by the 1.3% advance between July and November). On an annual average, however, this is the third consecutive decline after -2.4% in 2023 and -2.9% in 2024.
Scrolling through the list of sectors (data at current values) we find the trends that have been accompanying the Istat statistics for months, with a decline that decisively affects above all cars (-8.3%), by far the worst sector. Metallurgy, chemical intermediates, fashion, and FMCG also fell, confirming a complex period on a wide scale and not an episodic sectoral crisis. At the opposite extreme, the anti-cyclical sectors, i.e., food and pharmaceuticals, are the protagonists of a growth that improves the averages, just as the mechanics area is progressing. If for the first two areas - analysts explain - the anti-tariffs pre-stocking towards the US in the first part of the year was important, mechanics on the other hand partially benefited from the acceleration of Transition 5.0 from June onwards, which travelled in terms of tax credit bookings at the rate of 250-300 million per month.
For almost all other industries, the July-November period was better than the first half of the year, with fashion returning to positive territory after months of decline.
