Plastics machinery shipments rise 13.5%
North American shipments of plastics machinery registered a strong year-over-year increase in Q1 of 2016 according to statistics compiled and reported by the SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association’s Committee on Equipment Statistics (CES)
Shipments of primary plastics equipment (injection molding, extrusion, and blow molding equipment) for reporting companies totaled £233.1m ($330.5m) in the first quarter.
This was 13.5% higher than the total of £205.3m ($291.2m) in Q1 of 2015 but 15.4% less than the £275.49m ($390.6m) from Q4 of 2015; however, this data is not seasonally adjusted and the fourth quarter is typically the strongest quarter of the year, according to CES.
Bill Wood, of Mountaintop Economics and Research, is the plastics market economist who analyses and reports on the plastics machinery market for the CES.
Wood said: “This year got off to a good start. There has been a strong upward trend in the machinery data since the recession hit bottom in 2009, but this trend hit a plateau during the first three quarters of 2015.
“It re-emerged in the fourth quarter of last year and the momentum was sustained in the first quarter of this year.”
The report highlighted that when this data was broken out by reporting sector, there was wide variance in the quarterly totals of shipments values:
- Injection molding machinery jumped 25.2% in Q1 of this year when compared with the total from Q1 of 2015.
- Single-screw extruders decreased 17.4% in Q1 when compared with Q1 of 2015.
- Twin-screw extruders (which includes both co-rotating and counter-rotating machines) escalated 6.8% in Q1 when compared with the same quarter last year.
- Blow molding machines dropped 63.5% in Q1when compared with Q1 of 2015.
Wood said: "After a sluggish start to the year, the recovery in the US economy will gain momentum as 2016 progresses. This will spur rising consumer demand for plastics products.”
The CES also conducts a quarterly survey of plastics machinery suppliers that asks about present market conditions and expectations for the future. According to the Q1 survey, 84% of respondents expect market conditions to either hold steady or get better during the next 12 months.
The report showed that the outlook for global market conditions also improved in the first quarter. North America is now expected to have the fastest market growth in the coming months, but the outlook for Mexico is also strong. The outlooks for Asia, Europe, and Latin America improved in the first quarter when compared with previous quarters, though they remain well below the levels expected for North America and Mexico.