SEMI, the global industry association for companies that supply manufacturing technology and materials to the world’s chip makers, today reported that worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings reached US$ 7.31 billion in the first quarter of 2013. The billings figure is 8 percent higher than the fourth quarter of 2012 and 32 percent lower than the same quarter a year ago. The data is gathered jointly with the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ) from over 100 global equipment companies that provide data on a monthly basis.

Worldwide semiconductor equipment bookings were $7.78 billion in the first quarter of 2013. The figure is 23 percent lower than the same quarter a year ago and 14 percent higher than the bookings figure for the fourth quarter of 2012.

The quarterly billings data by region in billions of U.S. dollars, quarter-over-quarter growth and year-over-year rates by region are as follows:

The Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) from SEMI provides comprehensive market data for the global semiconductor equipment market. A subscription includes three reports: the monthly SEMI Book-to-Bill Report, which offers an early perspective of the trends in the equipment market; the monthly Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics (SEMS), a detailed report of semiconductor equipment bookings and billings for seven regions and over 22 market segments; and the SEMI Semiconductor Equipment Consensus Forecast, which provides an outlook for the semiconductor equipment market.