The machine tool industry showed continued signs of awakening from its economic doldrums as December US machine tool consumption rose more than 15% compared to November sales, according to the latest data available from the American Machine Tool Distributors' Association (AMTDA, Rockville, MD) and AMT-The Association For Manufacturing Technology (McLean, VA).
Sales in December totaled $220.88 million versus November sales of $210.25 million, an increase of 15.4%, which also, represented a 10.8% increase over sales of $199.43 million in December 2002. For the year, industry sales of $1.993 billion for 2003 trailed 2002 sales of 2.163 billion by 7.9%. The data are based on totals reported by companies participating in the USMTC program.
"Manufacturing technology orders finished strong in the fourth quarter last year," according to John B. Byrd Ill, AMT president. "Our customers' capacity use and profits are growing, a combination that has historically signaled previous recoveries in capital spending."
Regional sales in December showed big improvements versus November sales in four of five regions with sales increases in the South (86.3%), West (64.6%), Northeast (33.1%), and Midwest (21.9%) regions, and only the Central region's sales fell (-36.0%). In regional sales compared to December 2002, sales improved in the Northeast. (28%), Midwest (18.8%), Central (11.2%), and West (7.0%) regions, but declined in the South (-14.1%) region.
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