There was moderate cheer in the figures for November from the US Semiconductor Industry Association, which showed an improvement in the book-to-bill ratio to 0.95 from 0.92 in October – and the September figure has been revised upwards to 0.99 from the provisional 0.97. Nonetheless, the fact that the ratio – of chips ordered to chips shipped – is below 1.0, indicates that customers are still flush with inventory. Shipments in November to the US market rose 7.1% to $1,008.2m, down 7.4% on the figure for August, but 23.8% up on November 1987. Orders for November were $1,214.1m, 11.8% down on the August figure. Average monthly orders for the three months to November were up just 0.6% to $1071.1m compared with the figure for the three months to October, and three-month average shipments for the period to November were $1,131.6m, which divided into the order figure for the three months to November gives the book-to-bill ratio.
