AMBIVALENT MOOD IN THE RAIL INDUSTRY: INVESTMENT STIMULI ARE POSITIVE DRIVERS, BUT GLOBAL TRENDS AND TRADE CONFLICTS DAMPEN EXPECTATIONS
SCI RAILINDEX I/2025
Hamburg. Despite a continued decline in demand for products and services, the mood within the industry points to a slight recovery. The increase of 6 points to a total of 15 index points (compared to 9 in Q4/24) gives reason for hope. The value of 15 represents the overall quarterly score: both the current business situation and business expectations are rated at 15 points. While the industry still remains far from the significantly higher levels seen in the same quarters of previous years (Q1/24: 31%), it has nonetheless moved past its low points and is now showing solid business development. Amid positive news of massive public investments and unclear developments in global markets, the rail industry remains optimistic that the situation will improve for many companies.
The SCI GLOBAL RAIL INDEX is based on approximately 100 reports from representative companies in the global rail industry. The companies are regularly asked to assess their current business situation and their expectations for the coming three months. They can indicate their situation as "good", "satisfactory" or "poor" and their business expectations for the coming six months as "more favourable", "stable" or "less favourable". The balance value of the current business situation is the difference between the percentages of the answers "good" and "bad", the balance value of the expectations is the difference between the percentages of the answers "more favourable" and "less favourable". The business climate is a transformed mean value from the balances of the business situation and the expectations.
