Wednesday, August 19, 2009
June was yet another weak month for US retail sales and consumer confidence, a sobering indication that the longest recession since the 1930s has yet to release its hold. The EMS (electronics manufacturing services) industry was the last segment in the electronics supply chain to feel the effects of the recession and EMS shipments continued to decline in June.
Other sectors of the electronics supply chain, however, appear to have reached bottom and some are beginning the long climb back up. PCB (printed circuit board) shipments and US new orders for computer and electronic products remained flat. Semiconductor shipments turned up slightly in May and continued to go up in June. Seasonal effects have some role in this upturn, but other indicators support the view that the electronics industry is about to begin its recovery. 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. In June it jumped to 1.12, 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, July 2008 through June 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
By: DocMemory
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