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January Book-to-Bill Below 1.00
February 29, 2008 |Estimated reading time: 1 minute
BANNOCKBURN, Ill. IPC Association Connecting Electronics announced the January book-to-bill ratio for flexible and rigid PCBs fell below parity, ticking down to 0.97. The lower book-to-bill is typical of January, according to IPC, and should not be considered a downward trend.
Rigid PCB shipments are up 5.6% and bookings are 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. Rigid PCBs represent an estimated 88% of the current PCB market in North America.
Flexible circuit shipments in January 2008 were down 17.9% and bookings were down 20.9% compared to January last year. In January, the flexible circuit manufacturers in IPC's survey sample indicated that bare circuits accounted for about 82% of their shipment value reported for the month. Assembly and other services make up a large and growing segment of flexible circuit producers' business. The North American flexible circuit book-to-bill ratio declined to 0.96.
For rigid PCBs and flexible circuits combined, industry shipments increased 4.0% from January 2007, and orders booked increased 10.9% from January 2007. The combined 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.
"The rigid PCB segment showed strong year-over-year growth in January, which is encouraging," said Denny McGuirk, president, IPC. "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," he added.
In January 2008, 86% of total PCB shipments reported were domestically produced. Domestic production accounted for 85% of rigid PCB shipments and 86% of flexible circuit shipments.
The book-to-bill ratios are calculated by dividing the value of orders booked over the past three months by the value of sales billed during the same period from companies in IPC's survey sample.
For more information, visit www.ipc.org.