Equipment billings drop again, says SEMI

North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.95 billion in billings worldwide in September 2019, according to the September Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Billings Report published by the industry association SEMI. The billings declined 2.45% sequentially from $2 billion in August, and are 6% lower than the September 2018 billings level of $2.08 billion.

The spending downturn is not surprising, given declining semiconductor sales globally so far in 2019. The semiconductor market is not forecast to recover until late 2020, thanks to trends such as 5G.

“Monthly billings of North American equipment manufacturers declined for the second consecutive month,” said Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI, in a statement. “However, year-over-year billings shows signs of bottoming, and recent capital expenditure increases for leading-edge logic will provide near-term billings growth opportunities."

The SEMI Billings report uses three-month moving averages of worldwide billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars. (see below)

 

Billings
(3-mo. avg.)

Year-Over-Year

April 2019

$1,922.0

-28.5%

May 2019

$2,065.2

-23.6%

June 2019

$2.026.1

-18.4%

July 2019

$2,031.9

-14.6%

August 2019 (final)

$2,001.8

-10.5%

September 2019 (prelim)

$1,953.7

-6.0%

Source: SEMI, October 2019