Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you very much. (Operator instructions) Once again, as a reminder, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and brief related follow up question so that more questions can be taken during the day. And your first question comes from the line of George Staphos, please proceed.
George Staphos – Bank of America/Merrill Lynch
Thanks, everyone. Good morning. Bill or Dave, the first question I’ve got is on protective packaging in North America. Could you provide some additional color in terms of how the business trended over the course of the quarter? And then, the second related question is, there have been significant changes in the US manufacturing economy, obviously, both cyclically, but also on a secular basis. How are the new products aimed at addressing some of these changes and leveraging your performance going forward? Thanks.
William Hickey
Yes. Sure, George. Let me take your protective question in North America, and I’m actually looking at numbers month-by-month. And July and August were pretty flat. I think we said it earlier on the July call that we’ve not seen any real pick up in the business at the end of July. And in September, our order rate picked up. Now, some of that’s normal seasonality. It would normally pick up some packaging supply buy for the holiday season. So I wouldn’t read that much into it, but there is a seasonal pick up.
And the other part, in talking to customers, I think that a lot of customers had held back spending for so long in 2009 that they were essentially fully de-stocked. So I think there was a modest, and I’ll say, only a modest restocking. We are seeing more frequent orders and smaller orders. But generally, September was a couple of percent uptick. I think the numbers turned out to be 9% if you take that – well, if you take that effect is a non-North American number. But it was up in single digits in the month of September. And we are crossing our fingers for the rest of the year, George. Do your holiday shopping early.
George Staphos – Bank of America/Merrill Lynch
I’ll do what I can. Just Bill, just to be clear, those were year-on-year percentages you were giving or what was your perspective in giving that?
William Hickey
Those were sequential, George. Those were sequential.
George Staphos – Bank of America/Merrill Lynch
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