Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you. (Operator Instructions). First question does come from Claudia Hueston of JPMorgan. You may ask your question.
Claudia Hueston - JPMorgan
I was hoping you could provide just a little more detail on what you're seeing in the corrugated box business. Obviously, it sounds like your trends have been a little different than the industry and then you commented that things have picked over the course of October. Just wondering are there specific markets or areas where you're seeing trends, any color there would be helpful.
James Rubright
Yes, if you compare Southern Container's business profile and Rock-Tenn's, we have a higher percentage of our end markets in food, beverage, paper products of various categories, which could be personal care, for example. So our business is going to be a little more resilient, we think than an industrial packaging business.
Now to be clear, October was weak, and we saw our backlogs decline, probably 10% to 15% in the first couple of weeks of October. But then they came back up not to where they would have been at the offset of the quarter, but they increased in the last week of the quarter.
So, while we see weakness in the markets, it may just be our positioning that causes us to be somewhat stronger than other participants. The other thing is that the data has been flowing in, which causes me to say that it has not perfect predictive value. But simply on a Mcf shift basis we feel that our volumes were relatively consistent with our expectations for the quarter. In fact I'm not ignoring the fact that there is a weak economy, I'm simply reporting what we're seeing from volume data in our plants.
Claudia Hueston - JPMorgan
It's helpful. Good to hear. And then I guess, just looking at the display business I was curious just how that turned in through the quarter and drew into October. Has there been any slowing in that business at all?
James Rubright
I don't have a lot of visibility for what the December quarter would be, but there is also a lot of ebb and flow. So given the strength of the October quarter, and the fact that we're heading into the holiday season, I would expect that business to weaken. And we've seen a shift, so that I'm not sure where the revenues are going to come out or sheets produced in the manufacturing plants are down. But we've got in a high level of product manipulation activity in the assembly plant. So it's a little hard to say where that's going, but I question whether the business continued to be as strong as it has been?
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