In honor of Passover, we took a look at U.S. imports that included the word Matzah (alternately spelled Matzo):

The word from the Panjiva research team: global trade activity dropped slightly in February.  Specifically, there was a 3% decrease in the number of global manufacturers shipping to the U.S. market, as well as a 4% decrease in the number of U.S. companies receiving waterborne shipments from global manufacturers.

Reasons for cautious optimism:

• The percentage of significant manufacturers on the Panjiva Watch List fell to its lowest level yet, from 22% in January to 19% this month.
• Similarly, the percentage of significant buyers having done business with a Panjiva Watch List supplier in the preceding three months declined from 31% to 27%, suggesting a lower absolute level of risk
• The number of waterborne shipments coming into the U.S. saw a healthy 20% year-over-year increase in February — the largest year-over-year increase since we began tracking year-over-year increases 19 months ago.

Of course, it should be noted that year-over-year comparison are somewhat misleading at the moment since global trade was in a free fall this time last year.  Moreover, the absolute level of global trade activity remains well below where we were prior to the 2009 recession.  Bottom line: we’re a lot better off than we were a year ago, but we still have a long way to go to reach “normal” trading activity.

Methodological notes for the data junkies:

• Manufacturers that have suffered a 50% or greater decline in volume shipped to American customers in the most recent three month period, versus the same period a year ago, are on the Panjiva Watch List.
• “Significant manufacturers” are companies that have sent 10 or more shipments to American customers within the last year.  As of the end of February, there were 88,058 significant manufacturers.
• “Significant buyers” are U.S. companies that have received 10 or more shipments from overseas manufacturers within the last year.  As of the end of February, there were 75,973 significant buyers.

The release of Avatar in December was the culmination of a record year in the 3D movie world.

Eleven 3D movies were released last year – a 275% increase from 2008.  More impressively, 2009 US 3D movie revenue, at almost $2 billion, was nearly seven times 2008 revenue (source: www.the-numbers.com).  Avatar contributed over $700 million of revenue alone.   In addition to making at killing at the box office, it stands to sweep the Academy Awards, with 9 Oscar nominations.  But Avatar and its distributor 20^th Century Fox aren’t the only winners in the 3D movie world.

Some of the largest beneficiaries of the 3D movie boom have been 3D technology companies.  Shipments of 3D glasses into the United States have risen with the wave of 3D releases.  The Panjiva team searched through the shipments of 3D glasses to the United States and found one supplier – San Technology (Santec) – sending shipments of 3D glasses into the U.S.  This company’s shipments track along with the gross revenue generated by 3D movies in the U.S.

Specifically, Santec’s shipment weight in 2009 was 3.5 times the company’s shipment weight in 2008.

With the tremendous success of Avatar and more 3D movies planned for 2010, it is likely Santec and other 3D technology manufacturers will continue to benefit.

February was a busy month at Panjiva.  You can now search from Panjiva’s home page, and our new video tour will give you a sense of how to make the most of Panjiva.  (As always, we’d love feedback: josh@panjiva.com.)  Also, Panjiva was in the news:

CNN Money: “A search engine for global e-commerce: Panjiva’s Web site works. It can search records from 1.5 million companies in 190 countries. The technology also identifies trends, predicting whether a specific supplier might soon go belly up or projecting which products will be hot in the next holiday season.”

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/19/smallbusiness/global_ecommerce_search_engine/index.htm

Tom Pinckney’s Blog: “Panjiva’s insight here is that a lot of the things that make web search better also make searching for exporters better. Companies like Alibaba already have directories of millions of exporters. But when you search for a supplier for a specific type of product, it’s sort of like going back to the web before Google. For example, searching for ‘wool sweaters‘ returns a list of over 24,000 different contract manufacturers with no great way to rank them.”

http://www.tompinckney.com/2010/02/pagerank-for-shipping.html

Logistics Management: “Data released this week by Panjiva, an online search engine with detailed information on global suppliers and manufacturers, stated there was a 5 percent decline in the number of global manufacturers shipping to the U.S. from December 2009 to January 2010.”

http://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/449067-Logistics_business_news_Panjiva_cites_sequential