USMTO and CTMR, May 2024: The US Manufacturing Technology Orders (USMTO) programme tracks orders in the US market, based on the reports from participants. In the first five months of 2024, machine tool orders are -12.2% lower than in the same period of 2023 (January to May inclusive). The reports notes that May was the first month in 2024 and only the second month since last April where orders were higher than those of the same month in the previous year.
The AMT press release on these results notes that while orders from contract machine shops grew in May, this was less than the overall trend; there is strong demand from manufacturers of electrical and power generation & transmission equipment as the current administration hurries to spend funds allocated by Congress ahead of the elections. The downside is the delayed reduction in interest rates which has delayed the boost to demand from reduced financing costs.
The regional profile shows that only two regions – the West (+11%) and the South-East (+8%) – have orders above the level of the first 5 months in 2023; the other 4 regions are all in negative territory with the South-Central falling by -23%, North-Central-East by -22%, North-Central-West by -20% and the North-East at -15% (this is for metal cutting machines as not all of the metal forming data is available but the former is more than 98% of the total value to-date in 2024).
The US Cutting Tool Market Report (CTMR) tracks the tooling business on a similar basis; with the April and May figures almost identical, the market in the first five months of 2024 is running at +4.0% above that of the same months last year. Although the numbers remain positive, the report for the tooling market reflects the impact of higher prices which accounts for the modest growth. Backlogs are reported to be falling and challenges for the aerospace sector with longer lead times and a shortage of skilled workers are limiting growth.
You can download the press releases for the two surveys from the AMT web-site at www.amtonline.org/topic/intelligence, with the CTMR release also published on the USCTI web-site at www.uscti.com; alternatively, you can request either or both releases from MTA and we can make sure you get them when they are published each month.