North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.86 billion in billings worldwide in January 2017 (three-month average basis), according to the January Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Billings Report published today by SEMI.

SEMI reports that the three-month average of worldwide billings of North American equipment manufacturers in January 2017 was $1.86 billion. The billings figure is 0.5 percent lower than the final December 2016 level of $1.87 billion, and is 52.3 percent higher than the January 2016 billings level of $1.22 billion.

“Global billings reported by the North American equipment makers begin the New Year at high levels,” said Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI. “We expect strong spending growth in 2017 based on investments in leading-edge memory and foundry fabs.”

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.

SEMI ceased publishing the monthly North America Book-to-Bill report in January 2017.  The decision to discontinue the Book-to-Bill report was based on changes in reporting by some participants where the reporting of orders/bookings into the data collection program is no longer considered a necessary component of their industry analysis.

SEMI will continue publish a monthly North American Billings report and issue the Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics (WWSEMS) report in collaboration with the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ). The WWSEMS report currently reports billings by 24 equipment segments and by seven end market regions. Beginning with the January 2017 WWSEMS report, bookings information will only be available for the back-end equipment segments of the industry.