Bookings continued to outpace shipments of printed circuit boards (PCBs) in August, but bookings dropped slightly from the prior month, the IPC--Association Connecting Electronics Industries said Wednesday.

It's North American PCB industry book-to-bill ratio was 1.04, based on a three-month rolling average of monthly data collected from both rigid PCB and flexible circuit producers. Separately, the book-to-bill ratios in August were 1.05 for rigid PCBs and 0.98 for flexible circuits.

Combined, industry sales billed, or shipments, for the month increased 33.6 percent from August 2003, and orders booked increased 9.8 percent. Compared to 2003, shipments of PCBs were up 34.7 percent year-to-date, while bookings of PCBs were up 38 percent year-to-date. Combined industry shipments for August were up 13.8 percent over the previous month, and bookings were down 0.3 percent over the previous month.

Both rigid and flex shipments are still rebounding from the downturn and are showing strong growth, but flex is growing at a faster rate than rigid, according to the IPC.

Rigid PCB shipments were up 21.9 percent and bookings were up 8.7 percent year over year in August. Year-to-date, rigid PCB shipments have increased 25.1 percent and bookings have increased 21.1 percent compared with the year-ago period. On a month-over-month basis, rigid PCB shipments increased 15.2 percent and bookings increased 7.6 percent.

Flexible circuit shipments, meanwhile, were up 75.2 percent and bookings were down 19.3 percent year over year in August. Year-to-date, flexible circuit shipments have grown 77.4 percent and bookings have grown 100.7 percent compared to the same period in 2003. Compared to the previous month, flexible circuit shipments from the survey sample increased 8.5 percent and bookings decreased 27.1 percent.

The information in IPC¡¯s monthly industry statistics is based on data provided by a representative sample of both rigid and flexible PCB manufacturers in the U.S. and Canada, according to the trade group.

By: DocMemory
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