Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography and Banco de México released the September 2026 Manufacturing Orders Indicator on 1 October. The seasonally adjusted IPM fell 2.5 points from August to 49.1 points. A month earlier, the indicator had been above the 50-point threshold. This is not a count of realized production or the volume of orders in administrative records. It is a survey indicator combining manufacturing executives’ perceptions and expectations about the sector.

The IPM has five components: expected order volume, expected physical production, expectations for total employment, the timeliness of suppliers’ input deliveries, and input inventories. INEGI’s September release said the seasonally adjusted declines came in expected orders, production, employment, and supplier delivery timing, while the input-inventory component increased. The main indicator’s 2.5-point movement does not mean a 2.5% contraction or an equally sized decline in manufacturing output.

The indicator is centred on a 50-point threshold. Its methodology says values above 50 reflect more optimistic expectations about the relevant topic, while values below that level point to less favourable or contrary expectations. A reading of 49.1 therefore places the composite survey measure below the threshold; it does not, by itself, prove that realized production growth was negative. A point movement is different from a percentage change: the series is presented as index levels and differences in points.

The Monthly Business Opinion Survey, known by its Spanish acronym EMOE, uses a national sample across selected manufacturing subsector groups. INEGI’s methodology bulletin defines the observation unit as an enterprise employing at least 101 people in its economic activity. The manufacturing frame updated in 2025 comprised 6,743 enterprises, and the sample included 1,528 units. The design is probabilistic and stratified; enterprises with more than 1,000 employees are selected with certainty. Results are combined using sample weights and each study domain’s sector share.

The survey’s seven manufacturing subsector domains have national coverage. The 49.1 reading therefore does not describe a particular state or factory. Its components are intended to capture managers’ expectations at different stages of the production process; orders and production are forward-looking questions. The employment component is not an observed headcount either. Supplier delivery timing and inventory components measure businesses’ views of input conditions. The IPM should not be read as the same kind of data as realized production, sales, or export-volume series.

Seasonal adjustment aims to remove recurring calendar patterns from monthly comparisons. The methodology bulletin says original series are adjusted using the X-13ARIMA-SEATS statistical package. The 49.1 level and 2.5-point decline in the September headline refer to this adjusted comparison. Because the survey can be released soon after the reference month, it offers a timely indicator of business expectations. Its responses remain perceptions, however, and are subject to sampling uncertainty. Realized production data are compiled through a different statistical process.

With the scope and measure correctly identified, the September decline supports a narrow conclusion: the composite managerial-expectations index moved below the 50-point threshold and recorded a monthly point decrease. It does not alone establish that manufacturing output fell, that orders declined by a specific quantity, or what will happen next. Separate series such as industrial production, exports, and company records are needed to assess realized activity. This article reports the survey-based IPM released by INEGI and Banco de México and its documented scope; it does not recast the indicator as a production statistic or forecast.