North American Electronics Outlook: Double-Dip Recession, Flat 2003 or Hockey Stick Recovery?

摘要

As I write this column in early April, the Iraqi war and the SARS virus have clouded most forecasters' crystal balls. Consumer confidence (Chart 1) is at its lowest level since 1993 and, in spite of low inventories, purchasing managers are delaying orders (Chart 2). The patterns of both the PMI (Institute for Supply Management) and EBI (Electronic Buyers News) buying indices suggest that we are headed into a nasty double-dip recession. This concern is not limited to the U.S. Global semiconductor shipments (Chart 3) peaked last fall and have dipped noticeably in recent months. It appears that electronic equipment production has slowed globally, and the dip is most noticeable in SE Asia. In Japan, electronic equipment production has shown a gradual decline since 2000 with no obvious turnaround. Domestically, based upon U.S. electronic equipment orders, we appeared to be on our way to a recovery in January only to see war concerns and reduced business confidence cause orders to drop again in February (Chart 4). Looking at the U.S. end markets, military electronics (Chart 5) and medical equipment are the only sectors showing consistent increases. However many of large market segments are still depressed. In spite of a SEMI book-to-bill ratio near 1.0, actual orders for semiconductor fab, test ? measurement equipment are only 26% of their 2000 peak.