China industrial output +6.1% YoY in Q1 2026
China’s industrial production accelerated in the first quarter of 2026, with value-added output of enterprises above the designated size rising 6.1% year on year, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The growth rate was 1.1 percentage points faster than the fourth quarter of 2025.
Equipment manufacturing continued to act as a stabilizer for the industrial sector. In Q1 2026, value-added of equipment manufacturing grew 8.9% year on year, 1.0 percentage point faster than the previous quarter. Its share of total industrial output reached 35.1%, up 1.4 percentage points from a year earlier. All eight equipment sub-sectors posted growth, led by electronics (+13.6%), which contributed 21.4% to overall industrial growth. Railway, ship, aerospace and other transport equipment increased 13.5%, while general equipment (+7.8%), special equipment (+7.7%), instruments (+7.7%) and electrical machinery (+7.3%) also saw robust expansion. Output of medium-to-high-end equipment such as steam turbines for power stations (+69.2%), civil aircraft (+57.1%), multiple-unit trains (+49.4%) and civil steel ships (+28.2%) surged.
High-tech manufacturing maintained strong momentum, with value-added up 12.5% year on year in Q1 2026, the fastest since Q2 2022 and 3.5 percentage points higher than the previous quarter. Its contribution to overall industrial growth reached 32.6%, up 10.3 percentage points from a year earlier. Sub-sectors including integrated circuit manufacturing (+49.4%), aircraft manufacturing (+27.3%), special equipment for electronics (+24.8%) and bio-pharmaceutical products (+16.4%) recorded notable gains. Driven by the rapid development of "AI+", output of memory chips and semiconductor storage disks rose 43.5% and 15.9%, respectively. Emerging growth points such as embodied intelligence and human-machine collaboration propelled the robotics sector, with robot reducers and industrial robots output up 91.2% and 33.2%, respectively.
Digital product manufacturing expanded 11.2% year on year in Q1 2026, contributing 21.1% to overall industrial growth, up 4.7 percentage points from a year earlier. Smart device manufacturing and electronic components and equipment manufacturing grew 16.9% and 16.1%, respectively. Communication products such as mobile communication base station equipment (+36.0%) and 5G smartphones (+26.7%) saw strong output growth, while smart production equipment including 3D printing equipment (+54.0%), industrial control computers and systems (+51.5%) and automatic regulating instruments and control systems (+15.9%) also posted solid gains.
Industrial exports accelerated significantly. In Q1 2026, export delivery value of enterprises above the designated size reached 3.9 trillion yuan, up 7.1% year on year, 6.7 percentage points faster than Q4 2025. Equipment manufacturing accounted for 75.0% of total export delivery value, up 1.3 percentage points. Automobile exports rose 31.2%, railway, ship and aerospace exports up 28.0%, electrical machinery up 8.0%, and electronics up 4.2%, collectively contributing 76.6% to overall export growth.
Industrial enterprise revenues and profits also accelerated. In January-February 2026, operating revenue rose 5.3% year on year, while profits surged 15.2%, accelerating by 4.2 and 14.6 percentage points, respectively, compared with the full year 2025. Profit structure improved notably: equipment manufacturing profits grew 23.5%, accounting for 30.4% of total industrial profits (up 2.0 percentage points); high-tech manufacturing profits soared 58.7%, contributing 7.9 percentage points to overall profit growth, 5.5 percentage points more than in the full year 2025.
Business expectations improved. A survey of some industrial enterprises above designated size showed that the composite business outlook index for the next quarter rose 3.7 points quarter on quarter and 1.8 points year on year; the hiring expectations index rose 4.8 points quarter on quarter and 1.0 points year on year; and the investment expectations index rose 4.0 points quarter on quarter and 0.5 points year on year.
"Overall, the industrial economy achieved relatively fast growth in the first quarter of 2026. However, the external environment remains complex and volatile, and industrial enterprises still face problems such as insufficient market demand and high capital turnover pressure. Going forward, we will continue to fully and accurately implement the new development philosophy, accelerate the construction of a new development pattern, give full play to the leading role of scientific and technological innovation, step up the cultivation and expansion of new growth drivers, and steadily promote high-quality industrial development," said Wang Xin, Deputy Director of the Department of Industrial Statistics at the NBS.
Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China. Original: https://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/sjjd/202604/t20260417_1963345.html