January U.S. manufacturing technology consumption was $130.96 million, according to the AMT (Association for Manufacturing Technology) and AMTDA (American Machine Tool Distributors’ Association). This total was down 40.3% from December but up 26.2% relative to the $103.77 million reported for January 2009.
These numbers, and the data itemized below, are based on the data reported by companies participating in the United States Manufacturing Technology Consumption (USMTC) programme, a joint statistical programme of the AMT and AMTDA.
“Many customers placed orders in December to take advantage of tax relief measures, pulling orders out of January 2010,” explained Peter Borden, president of the AMTDA. “The good news is that January 2010 orders are still 26% ahead of January 2009. Fortunately, there are measures moving through Congress that will expand these benefits, incentivizing manufacturers to invest in capital equipment in 2010.”
The USMTC report, jointly compiled by the two trade associations representing the production and distribution of manufacturing technology, provides regional and national US consumption data for domestic and imported machine tools and related equipment. Analysis of manufacturing technology consumption provides a reliable leading economic indicator as manufacturing industries invest in capital metalworking equipment to increase capacity and improve productivity.
The report includes US manufacturing technology consumption broken down on a regional basis, as follows:
January 2010 manufacturing technology consumption in the Northeast region of the United States totalled $25.88 million, down 40.5% from December’s $43.49 million but up 31.4% by comparison with the previous year’s January.
At a total of $28.51 million, Southern region manufacturing technology consumption in January was only 3.6% below December’s $29.57 million and 95.8% higher than the total for January 2009.
The Midwest region pattern was similar to that in the Northeast: the total of $37.41 million in January was 39.9% less than the $62.22 million in December but 31.2% more than in January 2009.
The weakest regions were the Central and Western. At $27.10 million, January manufacturing technology consumption in the Central region was down 50.6% from December’s $54.81 million and up just 6.0% over January of last year. Consumption in the Western region fell by a full 58.7% in January, to $12.06 million compared with December’s $29.22 million, and was down also in comparison with January 2009, by 21.8%.
