April 2008

Revenues of wholesaler-distributors grew by 8.6% in 2007, marking another year of strong overall performance, according to Pembroke Consulting’s The 2008 Wholesale Distribution Economic Factbook,” the third edition of its comprehensive market data reference guide to the $4.2 trillion U.S. wholesale distribution industry.

The new report contains detailed economic statistics on the 112 distinct sub-sectors within the wholesale distribution industry.
 
“The performance of individual sub-sectors varied more than in previous years,” said Pembroke President Adam J. Fein, the study’s author. “The ongoing surge in commodity prices continues to ripple through wholesale distribution. Some sectors actually shrank in 2007 after revenues are adjusted for price …

February U.S. manufacturing technology consumption totaled $308.50 million, according to the Association For Manufacturing Technology and the American Machine Tool Distributors’Association. This total, as reported by companies participating in the USMTC program, was down 4% from January, but up 4.4% from the total of $295.39 million reported for February 2007. With a year-to-date total of $624.28 million, 2008 is up 1.2% compared with 2007.

These numbers and all data in this report are based on the totals of actual data reported by companies participating in the USMTC program.

Industry forecasters called for a first-half downturn in manufacturing technology orders,”said John B. Byrd III, AMT president. “The economic stimulus package has kept orders from falling in …

A worsening housing collapse continues to depress related industries, making for turbulent times in the U.S. manufacturing sector in 2008. Any gloom this year, however, should give way to a rebound in 2009, according to the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI Quarterly Industrial Outlook, a report that analyzes 27 major industries.

Housing starts were down 26% in the fourth quarter of 2007. They are expected to plummet another 33% in 2008, bottoming out in the second quarter as the U.S. remains in the midst of the most severe housing downturn anyone could have imagined,” according to Daniel J. Meckstroth, Chief Economist for the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, and author of the analysis.

Conversely, the longer term outlook looks much brighter, with a 32% increase …