Equipment Sales Recovering

Manufacturing Engineering, Jul 2004

Sales of US machine tools rose nearly 61% in March, signaling a continued strong rebound from the long-term doldrums affecting the industry over the past few years.

US equipment sales in March reached $272.34 million, up 60.5% from February sales and a 56.2% increase over March 2003 sales of $174.38 million, 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). Year-to-date sales of $609.5 million represent a 44.4% increase over 2003 YTD sales of $422.16 million.

"Tax incentives and a need for the latest technology to reduce manufacturing costs are driving the current surge in capital investments in the US," according to Ralph J. Nappi, AMTDA president. "Our US-based manufacturing sector is starting to gain the solid footing it needs to be more competitive globally despite the increased costs of operating businesses in our country compared to foreign competitors."

Regional sales reflected the national overall gains, as sales for March rose sharply in several regions paced by the Midwestern (99.2%), Central (52.9%), Northeastern (39.9%), Western (32.9%), and Southern (21.8%) regions compared to March 2003 sales.