In April, U.S. cutting tool consumption totaled $168 million according to the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute (USCTI) and The Association For Manufacturing Technology (AMT). This total, as reported by companies participating in the Cutting Tool Market Report (CTMR) collaboration, was down 16 percent from March’s $200 million and down 3.6 percent when compared with the total of $174 million reported for April 2016. With a year-to-date total of $716 million, 2017 is up 3.5 percet when compared with 2016.

“Once you get past the initial shock of seeing a large downturn in April and look deeper into the numbers, you begin to see that April had four less working days than March,” says Steve Stokey, president of USCTI. “The average sales per working day were actually up in April. This is good news for the industry as it continues to outperform 2016.”

The Cutting Tool Market Report (CTMR) program measures gross cutting tool shipments each month based on data collected from manufacturers by the USCTI and AMT. The report provides national U.S. consumption data of domestic and imported tools, including domestically produced and imported.