Recovery slows in electronics supply chain
Staff -- EDN, March 16, 2010
The electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry still has not shown signs of recovery. EMS shipments seem to have hit the bottom in August 2009, but have remained flat through the beginning of 2010.
US new orders for computer and electronic products have shown improvement, with a seasonal spike in January of 2010 after a decrease in December. Printed circuit board (PCB) and semiconductor shipments continued the seasonal pattern of slow growth in January.
Several leading indicators support the view that the electronics industry is on the road to recovery. IPC’s PCB book-to-bill ratio has been above parity (1.0) since May 2009. It stands at 1.06 as of January 2010. The book-to-bill ratio leads sales in the PCB industry by an average of three to six months. The current trend is a very encouraging sign of expected growth in North American PCB sales in 2010.
Trends in U.S. Computer and Electronic Products New Orders
and North American Sales Indices of Selected Supplier Industries
Feb 2009 – Jan 2010
Note on the graph: All indices are based on the same baseline of the average month in 2000=100, and reflect a 3-month rolling average.
Sources: IPC statistical programs for the EMS and PCB industries; SIA for semiconductor data; U.S. Census Bureau for U.S. new orders for computer and electronic products.
