Plastics machinery shipments in North America rose in the first quarter of 2018

Plastics machinery shipments in North America rose in the first quarter of 2018 on a year-over-year basis according to the statistics compiled and reported by the Plastics Industry Association’s (PLASTICS) Committee on Equipment Statistics (CES).

This is the fourth consecutive quarterly year-over-year increase in plastics machinery shipments.

The preliminary estimate of shipments of primary plastics equipment, such as injection moulding and extrusion, for reporting companies totalled $333.7 million (approximately £251 million) in the first quarter, a 15.1 percent higher than the total $290.0 million (approximately £218 million) in Q1 of 2017.

“Shipments of plastics machinery tend to be lower in the first quarter relative to other quarters due to seasonality,” said PLASTICS Chief Economist Perc Pineda.

“Still, the U.S. economy was off to a good start in the first quarter. Business confidence remains high, helped by corporate tax reform enacted last year. Plastics equipment shipments data are in sync with healthy corporate profits in the manufacturing sector, including the plastics industry.”

The shipments value of injection moulding machinery increased 22.9 percent in Q1 compared to the fourth quarter of last year, while the shipments value of single-screw extruders declined 14.6 percent during the same period.

The U.S. total export value for plastics machinery in the first quarter was $404.0 million (approximately £303 million), a 7.7 percent decrease from the previous quarter, but a 6.9 percent increase from a year ago.

The respondents to the Q1 survey expect that construction, appliances and packaging will be strong end-markets in the next 12 months.

PLASTICS believes its market outlook remains stable, as more respondents noted that they expected market conditions to be unchanged for the year due to the U.S. economy is at full employment capacity.