Signs of recovery seen in electronics supply chain, IPC reports

Sectors of the supply chain appear to have reached bottom and some are beginning the long climb back up.

Staff -- Electronic Business, 10/13/2009

Editor's note: The following information is provided by IPC — Association Connecting Electronics Industries from its quarterly business report, the Supply Chain Tracker.  Other industry data can be found at www.ipc.org. 
 
The EMS (electronics manufacturing services) industry was the last segment in the electronics supply chain to feel the effects of the recession and it looks as if EMS will be the last to start its recovery. EMS shipments seem to have hit the bottom and remained flat in August.

Other sectors of the supply chain appear to have reached bottom and some are beginning the long climb back up. US new orders for computer and electronic products remained flat in August. PCB (printed circuit board) shipments and semiconductor shipments both continued to climb in August.

Several indicators support the view that the electronics industry is beginning to recover. One leading indicator that is closely followed by electronics industry analysts is IPC’s PCB book-to-bill ratio. The ratio has been climbing steadily for the past five months and climbed above parity (1.0) in May. Although in August it retreated to 1.09 after climbing to 1.12 in June, it still remains positive, a very encouraging sign of expected growth in North American PCB sales for the remainder of 2009.

Trends in US computer and electronic products new orders and North American sales indices of selected supplier industries, September 2008 to August 2009

Note on the graph:  All indices are based on the same baseline of the average month in 2000=100, and reflect a three-month rolling average.

Sources:  IPC statistical programs for the EMS and PCB industries; SIA for semiconductor data; US Census Bureau for US new orders for computer and electronic products.