Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Your first question comes from the line John Franzreb – Sidoti & Co.
John Franzreb – Sidoti & Co.
My first question is regarding the Motive business given your confidence that you've seen the worst of the recession could you kind of talk us through what we are seeing out there in the Motive side of the market that gives you that kind of confidence?
John Craig
Sure, John, if you take a look at the first half of this year our Motive Power business was down 47%. That is a major, major drop, big drop taking place. But if you go back and look at it historically you'll find that it's not surprising.
Whenever there is a slow up in the economy we do see Motive Power batteries drop off much faster than you see spending or – much harder than what the recession is. On the other side of it whenever there is – you are coming out of a recession or a downturn Motive Power batteries tend to go up very strong.
And the reason for that is there is a pent up demand. If somebody has two fork trucks and they're down a shift they'll only use one if the other fork truck breaks down. These batteries do age even if they're sitting idle. They do age just by not being charged.
So we're anticipating that we are going to see strong demand for Motive Power come back. We are starting to see that in our order pattern which is up and we are starting to see that in our backlog which is also up.
John Franzreb – Sidoti & Co.
Could you quantify that, John? That's great news.
John Craig
John, I don't want to give percentages on that at this point. We tend not to give that information out in forward-looking. As you know we don't give guidance as far as revenue for the next quarter. We only give earnings.
John Franzreb – Sidoti & Co.
Regarding China, certainly you talked in the past about how much potential spend is in that market. Can you talk a little bit about how that played out in the quarter or how you expect that to play out in the current quarter?
John Craig
Well, I think when you take a look at our earnings in our Asian operation there quite impressive. We had been very successful in there. I will say that we are holding our pricing quite well and it's one of the reasons you see the earnings up so high.
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