Mobile Metro Area Report

Alabama Business Confidence Index™

Second Quarter 2025

Mobile Businesses Anticipate Growth in the Second Quarter of 2025

Mobile business leaders are forecasting overall economic growth with mild confidence in the Q2 2025 ABCI survey. All six of the component indexes are above 50, signaling expansionary expectations, though the level of confidence in each forecast varied. On the higher end, metro panelists are most confident that industry sales will increase this quarter compared to Q1 2025. On the lower end, the indexes for industry capital expenditures, the Alabama economy, and the US economy are much closer to 50, indicating only mild confidence in those expansionary forecasts.

Index above 50 indicates positive outlook as compared to last quarter.
Index below 50 indicates negative outlook compared to last quarter.

Mobile Component Index Analysis

• Alabama Economy: The Alabama outlook registered at 51.4 in the Q2 2025 ABCI survey. Panelists are mildly confident in their forecast for improved conditions in the statewide economy compared to those seen in Q1 2025.
• US Economy: Mobile’s Q2 2025 forecast for the US economy was also 51.4, indicating mildly confident expectations in improved conditions compared to Q1 2025.
• Industry Sales: Over 60 percent of Mobile business leaders are forecasting an increase in their industry sales in Q2 2025 compared to last quarter, resulting in a strongly confident expansionary index of 62.5. This is the metro’s highest Q2 2025 component index.
• Industry Profits: The metro’s profits index registered at a moderately confident expansionary forecast of 55.6 in the Q2 2025 survey. Half of Mobile’s panelists anticipate an increase in their profits compared to Q1 2025’s levels.
• Industry Hiring: Mobile’s hiring index is mildly expansionary this quarter at 54.2. Over 72 percent of panelists expect to continue hiring in Q2 2025 at the same rate as the previous quarter, while 22 percent expect to increase hiring and only 6 percent expect to decrease hiring compared to their Q1 2025 levels.
• Industry Capital Expenditures: The index for industry capital expenditures was 51.4 in the Q2 2025 survey, communicating mild confidence in an expansionary forecast.

ABCI Mobile in Context

Mobile’s ABCI was a mildly confident 54.4 in the Q2 2025 survey. This is a higher index than the metro has recorded since Q1 2022, keeping in mind that there are five quarters in the last three years with no data due to low participation. Looking at the existing recent data, this is the first quarter since Q1 2022 that the metro’s US economic outlook has been expansionary: it was very strongly contractionary in all of 2023 and moderately contractionary in Q2 2024. In Q2 2024 and in Q2 2025, metro business leaders are most confident forecasting increased sales compared to the previous quarters.

Panelists in Mobile had the highest metro ABCI this quarter at 54.4, with more confidence in their forecasts for increased sales, profits, and hiring than the other metro areas. The Birmingham–Hoover ABCI was also expansionary with a mildly confident index of 51.9. The ABCIs for Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, and Montgomery were all below 50, as business leaders forecast worse economic conditions in both the statewide and national economies and the contraction of at least one of their industry indexes.

The Center for Business and Economic Research would like to thank the Alabama business executives who completed the second quarter 2025 ABCI™ survey. This is the 94th consecutive quarter this report has been recorded, and it would not have been possible without your participation.
Be sure to log in during the June 1–15 survey window to record your opinions about economic prospects and industry performance looking ahead to the third quarter of 2025.

Analysis provided by Susannah Robichaux, Socioeconomic Analyst, Center for Business and Economic Research, Culverhouse College of Business, The University of Alabama.