Global Industrial Production Growth Improves; North American SEMI Shipments & Orders Up; FOREX stable; European & Japanese Electronics Doing Better; Metal Prices Rising; SEMI Material Sales Down 19% in 2009

03.22.2010 // Posted by: Walt Custer // Posted in: Articles, Industry Conditions

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Global Industrial Production Growth Continues

Industrial production growth is now in positive territory for most major countries (Chart 1). Remember that this “growth” is calculated vs. very low values of a year ago.

North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts February 2010 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 1.22 (Chart 2) & (Chart 3)

North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.23 billion in orders in February 2010 (3-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.22, according to the February 2010 Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.

The 3-month average of worldwide bookings in February 2010 was $1.23 billion, up 4.5% from January 2010’s $1.18 billion, and 376.7% above the $258.4 million in orders posted in February 2009.

The 3-month average of worldwide billings in February 2010 was $1.01 billion, 5.7% greater than January 2010’s $957.6 million, and 92.5% more than the February 2009 billings of $525.5 million.

"The book-to-bill ratio has been above parity for eight months in a row, and 3-month average order figures are in the range last reported in late 2007,” said Dan P. Tracy, senior director, SEMI Industry Research and Statistics, "Year-over-year comparisons are dramatic in comparison to the very low figures reported in the first quarter of 2009.”

Source: SEMI

Global FOREX Update vs. U.S. Dollar (Chart 4), (Chart 5), (Chart 6), (Chart 7), (Chart 8), (Chart 9), & (Chart 10)

The Trade-Weighted Exchange Value of the U.S. Dollar vs. a broad group of major U.S. trading partners has been relatively stable in 1Q’10 (Chart 4). Individual countries’ historic exchange rates per U.S. dollar are given in (Chart 5) (Euro), (Chart 6) (Canadian dollar), (Chart 7) (Japanese Yen), (Chart 8) (Chinese Yuan), (Chart 9) (Taiwanese NT$) and (Chart 10) (S. Korean won).

European Upturn Continues (from a Deep Canyon) (Chart 11), (Chart 12), (Chart 13), (Chart 14), (Chart 15), (Chart 16), (Chart 17), (Chart 18), (Chart 19), (Chart 20), (Chart 21), (Chart 22), & (Chart 23)

European computer, electronic & optical product production is given in a Euro index by Eurostat where an average month of 2005=100 (Chart 11) and also on a 3/12 (3-month) growth basis (Chart 12). January’ 3-month growth of +4% in encouraging but the Euro index value in Chart 11 shows how far Europe must recover to reach its early 2008 peak (an addition 24% growth is needed)!

(Chart 13), (Chart 14), (Chart 15), (Chart 16), (Chart 17), (Chart 18), & (Chart 19) show the Euro Index performance of Europe’s major electronics end markets while Charts (Chart 20), (Chart 21), & (Chart 22) provide printed circuit board related data. (Chart 23) has annualized and 3-month growth by European sector.

Business conditions in Europe are improving but they are far from their 2008 peak.

Japan Improves too (but from the very low base of the prior year) (Chart 24), (Chart 25), (Chart 26), (Chart 27), (Chart 28), (Chart 29), (Chart 30), & (Chart 31)

Japan’s 3-month growth of electronic equipment production looks encouraging (Chart 24) however like Europe this growth is relative to very poor results the prior year (Chart 24) & (Chart 25). Japanese made PCBs (Chart 27), (Chart 28), (Chart 29) and electronic component (Chart 30), & (Chart 31) production is also expanding again.

Metal Prices Continue to Rise (Chart 32), (Chart 33), (Chart 34), & (Chart 35)

2009 Global Semiconductor Materials Sales $34.6 Billion

The global semiconductor materials market contracted 19% in 2009 compared to 2008 as the semiconductor industry reacted quickly to deteriorating market conditions in the first part of the year. While the decline in 2009 was significant, it was less than the 26% decline the semiconductor materials industry incurred in 2001.

Semiconductor materials market revenues totaled $34.6 billion globally in 2009. Total wafer fabrication materials and packaging materials were $17.9 billion and $16.8 billion, respectively. Comparable revenues for these segments in 2008 were $24.2 billion for wafer fabrication materials and $18.3 billion for packaging materials. Significant decreases in silicon revenues contributed to the year-over-year decline in the wafer fabrication materials market.

Japan remains the largest consumer of semiconductor materials with a 22% share due to its large wafer fab and advanced packaging base. All regional markets experienced double-digit declines with the exception of China, which contracted about 9%. Increases in gold metal pricing helped to offset declines in regions with strong packaging bases. (The ROW region is defined as Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, other areas of Southeast Asia and smaller global markets).

Source: SEMI

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