January PCB market seasonally weak

Mar 31, 2016

Sales figures reported by printed circuit board manufacturers in January 2016 stood 7.5 percent lower than those reported for January 2015.

January 2016, however, had three working days less. Compared to December 2015, sales increased by 30.4 percent. Industry association ZVEI PCB and Electronic Systems sees the reason in the low inventory strategy employed by many customers.

After the exceptionally high order intake in December, January 2016 saw the counter-movement. The decrease compared to January 2015 was 15 percent; compared to December 2015 it registered with eleven percent. Orders at the turn of a year are often cancelled, especially for PCBs that have become obsolete by model changes (customer side). To that extent, a decline in January is not unusual.

The book-to-bill ratio - which was exceptionally high in December - has normalised again and stands at 0.70 in January.

The number of employees has continuously increased over the first eleven months of last year and declined slightly in December. In January 2016, the figure was 2.7 percent above that of January 2015.

Source: evertiq.com