SEMI reports growth in bookings as book-to-bill ratio improves
Bookings and billings are improving month over month, but continue to show steep year-over-year declines, according to data from SEMI.
By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News -- EDN, July 22, 2009
North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $323.4 million in orders in June and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.77, according to the June 2009 Book-to-Bill Report published this week by SEMI.
A book-to-bill of 0.77 means that $77 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.
| Billings (3-month avg.) | Bookings (3-month avg.) | Book-to-bill ratio | |
| January | $584.2M | $277.2M | 0.47 |
| February | $525.5M | $258.4M | 0.49 |
| March | $438.3M | $245.6M | 0.56 |
| April | $385.7M | $249M | 0.65 |
| May | $392.6M | $287.8M | 0.73 |
| June | $419.6M | $323.4M | 0.77 |
SEMI's book-to-bill ratio has been on a steady increase since February, according to data from the organization.
“We are seeing improvement to the book-to-bill ratio due to slight growth in bookings," said Stanley T Myers, president and CEO of SEMI, in a statement Tuesday. “However for the equipment manufacturers, the market remains extremely difficult as customers are not yet at a point where additional capacity investments are needed.”
The three-month average of worldwide bookings in June was $323.4 million, SEMI reported, noting that the bookings figure is about 12% greater than the final May level of $287.8 million. Still, the figure is about 69% less than the $934.2 million in orders posted in June 2008.
The three-month average of worldwide billings in June was $419.6 million, just more than 7% greater than the final May level of $392.6 million, according to SEMI. Following the same trend as bookings, the billings figure was also down year over year at about 64% less than the June 2008 billings level of $1.16 billion.
