North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted US$1.44 billion in orders last month, bringing the book-to-bill ratio to 1.13, a report released yesterday by the global industry association Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) said.
That marked the tenth consecutive month that the ratio, which is a key indicator used to assess the health of the semiconductor industry, has exceeded the healthy level of one since last June.
“The continuing rise in bookings and billings confirms the solid recovery in investments planned for 2010,” said Stanley Myers, president and CEO of SEMI, in a statement released yesterday.
“In contrast to last year’s conditions, the change in the market is quite remarkable and an encouraging sign for the industry,” Myers said.
CONTINUING
In addition, a SEMI analyst said the global bookings and billings of semiconductor equipment would continue to rise later this year after major memory chipmakers Samsung Electronics Co and Toshiba Corp recently raised their capital spending this year.
Last month, the three-month average of worldwide bookings grew more than four-fold to US$1.44 billion from US$249 million in the same period last year, SEMI said.
On a monthly basis, that represented about 8.1 percent growth from US$1.33 billion booked in March.
The three-month average of worldwide bookings last month was US$1.44 billion.
The bookings figure was up 8.1 percent from the final March level of US$1.33 billion and is 478.7 percent above the US$249 million in orders posted in April last year.
The three-month average of worldwide billings last month more than tripled to US$1.28 billion, or up 16.2 percent from March’s US$1.1 billion.
RATIO
As a result, last month’s book-to-bill was 1.13, meaning that US$113 in orders was received for every US$100 of product billed for the month.
The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving averages of worldwide bookings and billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers.
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