-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- smt007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueBox Build
One trend is to add box build and final assembly to your product offering. In this issue, we explore the opportunities and risks of adding system assembly to your service portfolio.
IPC APEX EXPO 2024 Pre-show
This month’s issue devotes its pages to a comprehensive preview of the IPC APEX EXPO 2024 event. Whether your role is technical or business, if you're new-to-the-industry or seasoned veteran, you'll find value throughout this program.
Boost Your Sales
Every part of your business can be evaluated as a process, including your sales funnel. Optimizing your selling process requires a coordinated effort between marketing and sales. In this issue, industry experts in marketing and sales offer their best advice on how to boost your sales efforts.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - smt007 Magazine
Cookson Predicts Corporate and Industry Direction
November 8, 2006 |Estimated reading time: 1 minute
LONDON Cookson Group plc discussed company standings and statistics on the electronics industry at large during a meeting for analysts and shareholders. The meeting focused on the transition to lead-free products, expansion in China, raw materials, and other factors that could encourage profitable industry growth.
Cookson noted good end-market growth in electronics on the whole; however, automotive end-markets, notably in the U.S., seem to be falling off. The chemistry market in China will continue strong growth, according to the company, which has increased representation in the region. Cookson foresees the industrial electronics sector in China as a potentially lucrative, sustained end-market.
The market transition to lead-free products has progressed as expected into the last quarter of 2006, and the company predicts low-silver solders, immersion silver, and other technical developments will generate commercial profitability. Certain precious metal prices, those of gold and silver for example, have displayed less volatility during Q'03 2006, helping stimulate use of the raw materials. However, significant volatility of tin and other precious metal prices, which impact assembly material and chemistry sectors, along with ongoing lead-free transitions that affect silver volumes, makes growth in the short-term difficult to track in numbers, says Cookson. Higher-margin products for the PCB and semiconductor-related markets, including copper damascene and wafer-bumping products, will factor into competitiveness for chemical companies in the sector.
Cookson announced that it will continue efforts to restructure European departments of the chemistry business and realign production in the North American assembly materials business. The company also expects to generate enough stability and growth to allow for future acquisitions, but shows no interest in dependence on acquisitions within a corporate roadmap. Companies supporting sophisticated technology with insufficient global reach may be advantageous acquisitions.