Question-and-Answer Session
[Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from the line of Michael Schneider of Robert W. Baird & Co.?
Michael Schneider - Robert W. Baird
Good morning guys and congratulations on a great year so far.
Lewis M. Kling - President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Mike.
Mark A. Blinn - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Latin America Operations
Thanks Mike.
Michael Schneider - Robert W. Baird
Maybe first we can just talk about the mix in pumps because I guess even I understand of that the six point shift now towards project activity versus half the market, can you give us a sense of is this weight or is this mix sustainable in the Q4 or in the early '09 or is there some reversal that we should expect now as the cycle gets longer?
Mark A. Blinn - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Latin America Operations
Well, as is we talked about before Mike, one of the big things that's impacted shift is our tremendous success in growing our aftermarket business. But as we talked about over the last couple of quarters and even in the last year, you've seen the bias relative to current mix to more original equipment. And so and that persisted again year-to-date and even in this quarter because we had 69% original equipment in orders in 31%.
So that should indicate that there is still going to be a shift mix relative year-over-year. Having said that, I think one of the important things to note is that we continue to drive gross margin improvement, so as we talked about before original equipment is good business, so we look at in terms of absolute growth and each one of them in terms of original equipment in aftermarket.
Michael Schneider - Robert W. Baird
Okay. And in fact on that topic of the gross margin benefit I think historically you said each point shift translates into about a 30 point change in gross margin. And year-to-date now are we seeing a one point shift and yet gross margins are up 300 basis points. So I'm curious how is that relationship held, just so we can get a sense as we model now at some point I guess in '09 the reversal of this mix shift. Does that reversal still hold such that, the aftermarket growth is percent of mix for each one point, we're going to see 30 basis points of gross margin benefit.
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