MARCH 3, 2008--IPC-Association Connecting Electronics Industries (Northbrook, IL, USA;www.ipc.org), a global trade association of 2400 member companies representing all facets of the electronic interconnection industry, has announced its findings from its January 2008 Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Statistical Program. Rigid PCB shipments were up 5.6% and bookings were up 13.7% in January 2008 from January 2007. The book-to-bill ratio for the North American rigid PCB industry in January 2008, however, slipped to 0.97.
Flexible circuit shipments in January 2008 were down 17.9% and bookings were down 20.9% compared to January 2007. The North American flexible circuit book-to-bill ratio declined to 0.96. For rigid PCBs and flexible circuits combined, industry shipments in January 2008 increased 4.0% from January 2007, and orders booked increased 10.9% from January 2007. The combined (rigid and flex) industry book-to-bill ratio in January 2008 fell to 0.97.
Every January, IPC opens its monthly statistical programs to new participants, resulting in a slight change in the survey sample. Therefore, January's month-to-month growth rates are not available. Reporting of month-to-month growth rates will resume next month.
"The rigid PCB segment showed strong year-over-year growth in January, which is encouraging," said IPC President Denny McGuirk. "Orders have lagged shipments in both segments of the PCB industry for the past two months, causing book-to-bill ratios to dip slightly below parity, but this should not raise concerns. January is typically a slow month for the industry, and monthly fluctuations like this are normal."
The information in IPC's monthly PCB industry statistics is based on data provided by a representative sample of both rigid and flexible PCB manufacturers in the USA and Canada. IPC publishes the PCB Book-to-Bill Ratio and the Interconnect Manufacturing Services (IMS) Business Report each month. Statistics for the previous month are not available until the last week of the following month.
