Inventories seem to still be managed well across most major market sectors, semiconductor included!  Manufacturing is still contracting, though at a slowing pace, according to Kathy Lien, Director of Currency Research at FX360, "the [manufacturing] sector is crawling back towards expansionary territory.  The worst may be over but it is still far to [sic] early to label this a manufacturing sector recovery because factory orders fell more than expected in March."  Regarding that critical variable, inventories, Lien added, "Inventories was the only component that declined but this is positive because lower inventories means that companies may have to restock soon."

What exactly has been happening to the electronics manufacturing sector?  Well, I've discussed the inventory, IC ASPs, and book-to-bill ratio issues in short throughout this MarketWatch Commentary section and at length in MarketWatch Quarterly over the past many quarters here.  But if we look at where growth is within the EMS sector, as reported in Manufacturing Market Insider's latest April edition, "the four segments typically identified as nontraditional [industrial, medical, automotive, defense and aerospace] together with the miscellaneous category grew faster last year than the industry overall."  See MMI's newly released chart below (from MMI Vol. 19, No. 4, p.4) for their well supported breakdown of the EMS sector:

As MMI notes, while it is not surprising that nontraditional sectors show growth over mature sectors, it is interesting to see where this growth is happening.  Taken together with other metrics, more pieces to the industry's future can then be put in place.