US manufacturing activity drops to 10-year low…
“In the surest sign yet that the trade war is hurting the American economy, manufacturing activity contracted in September to a 10-year low.
The Institute of Supply Management’s closely watched index showed a decline in manufacturing for the second month in a row. September’s reading of 47.8 was its lowest since June 2009, and it was worse than what economists had expected. A reading above 50 denotes growth in the sector.”
In the maker / electronics world, we’ve heard from friends and through the usual gossip some companies are down as much as 50% year over year to flat (same), to maybe 10% or so over last year. For Adafruit in September 2019 we ended up up +22.2% YoY, and up +3.1% more orders than last year at the same time. Another data point we wanted to add here: ADABOX is over 4,000+ subscribers, 1/3 of the original subscriber base has gotten every single one, over 172 have all 13 boxes out of the current 4k+ subs. We also ran another stat… Total number of distinct customers that have subscribed to at least the last 8 Adaboxes (Adaboxes 6-13): 1,576.
We’re 100% focused on getting new open-source hardware out, publishing open-source code, guides, videos, community efforts, and keeping popular items in stock and preparing for what may be an excellent holiday season. Thank you so much Adafruit team members, our community, our partners, and customers for being part of this adventure together with us. We remain VC-free, loan-free, open-source, woman-owned, and manufacturing in the USA. There will be challenges ahead for sure, we’re looking forward to navigating them together.