SEMI's March book-bill hits 1.18

Electronic News, April 22, 1996

Mountain View, Calif--Anxiously-awaited semiconductor equipment book-to-bill figures were in from Semiconductor Equipment & Materials International (SEMI) last week. They told a tale of still-healthy growth with a book-to-bill ratio of 1.18 in March, following an adjusted ratio of 1.36 for February for the North American semiconductor equipment industry.

Figures released by SEMI put worldwide orders for March at $1.48 billion worldwide, down 12 percent from $1.69 billion in February. Worldwide shipments for March increased nominally, to $1.3 billion, resulting in a book-to-bill of 1.18.

"The decline of 12 percent in the three-month averages for bookings was expected," said Dick Greene, principal analyst and manager of SEMI's market statistics department. "Much of the order strength of the past three months has been coming from Korea, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. Uncertainty on semiconductor industry DRAM issues is still a problem which we expect to be short-term."

SEMI's book-to-bill on U.S.-based semiconductor equipment suppliers' was up 32 percent year over year, and shipments of $1251.2 million were up 45 percent from a year ago. The front-end equipment book-to-bill was 1.28, on orders up 39 percent, with the test book-to-bill 0.97, on orders up 13 percent, and the assembly book-to-bill 0.75, on orders up 5 percent.

February total equipment orders were unrevised, but shipments changed from up 81 percent to up 76 percent, bringing the revised book-to-bill from 1.33 to 1.36. January total equipment orders were revised from up 70 percent to up 80 percent, but shipments only changed fractionally, bringing the revised book-to-bill from 1.26 to 1.28.

The PaineWebber brokerage house was philosophical in its conclusions. "As expected, equipment orders have begun hitting the tough 'comps.' While the book-to-bill remained positive, 32 percent year-over-year order growth fell precipitously from February's 70 percent. The year-over-year front-end order rate fell by half from February's 80 percent clip, the low test order rate fell over half from last month's 35 percent, and assembly orders plunged both in absolute dollars and growth rate...we believe that the deceleration in order growth rates is actually understated due to the head of steam coming out January's 80 percent extraordinarily high total equipment year-over-year order growth rate."