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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Drake who wrote (30389)	5/19/1999 7:48:00 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

semi.org North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts April 1999 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 1.28 MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., May 19, 1999 -- Continuing the upward trend of the past seven months, North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted a six percent month-over-month increase in bookings worldwide in April 1999 to $1.3 billion, it was reported by Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI). The North American semiconductor equipment industry posted a book-to-bill ratio of 1.28 for April 1999. A book-to-bill of 1.28 means $128 in orders were received for each $100 worth of products shipped. Three-month average shipments in April 1999 were $1.02 billion. The figure is 10 percent above the March 1999 level, and is 28 percent below the April 1998 level of $1.4 billion. Three-month average bookings increased in April 1999 to $1.3 billion. The bookings figure is six percent above March 1999 and is 18 percent above the April 1998 level of $1.1 billion. "The continued strength of equipment orders is very encouraging," said Stanley Myers, president of SEMI. "Now that the Asian business climate has stabilized, reports of price weakness in the DRAM market seem to be accelerating the push to next-generation 0.18-micron technology for memory products. Test, assembly and packaging businesses are also recovering more quickly than expected thanks to the move to faster and more integrated chip designs." The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving average bookings to three-month moving average shipments for the North American semiconductor equipment industry. Shipments and bookings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars. Month Shipments Bookings Book-to-Bill November 98 913.6 767.2 0.84 December 98 920.9 883.4 0.96 January 99 890.0 996.7 1.12 February 99 (final) 845.0 1,028.8 1.22 March 99 (revised) 922.8 1,227.8 1.33 April 99 (preliminary) 1,018.9 1,305.2 1.28 In a separate report, SEMI also announced the first quarter 1999 results for total bookings and shipments of the global semiconductor equipment industry. Shipments by all manufacturers in the first quarter of 1999 increased to $4.2 billion, seven percent over the $3.95 billion shipped in the fourth quarter of 1998. First quarter 1999 orders were up to $5.2 billion, a full 38 percent above the fourth quarter 1998 bookings figure of $3.8 billion. The data contained in this release was compiled by the independent public accounting firm of Arthur Andersen LLP, without audit, from data submitted directly by the participants. SEMI and Arthur Andersen LLP can assume no responsibility for the accuracy of the underlying data. The data are contained in a monthly Express Report published by SEMI that tracks shipments and orders worldwide of North American-based manufacturers of equipment used to manufacture semiconductor devices, not shipments and orders of the chips themselves. The global data are contained in the monthly Worldwide SEMS Report published by SEMI and the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ) that tracks the shipments and orders of all global semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Based in Mountain View, Calif., SEMI is an international trade association serving more than 2,300 companies participating in the $65 billion semiconductor and flat panel display equipment and materials markets. SEMI maintains offices in Austin, Beijing, Boston, Brussels, Hsinchu, Moscow, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo and Washington, D.C. Visit SEMI OnLine at www.semi.org.