-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- smt007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueIPC 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.
The Cost of Rework
In this issue, we investigate rework's current state of the art. What are the root causes and how are they resolved? What is the financial impact of rework, and is it possible to eliminate it entirely without sacrificing your yields?
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - smt007 Magazine
IPC Posts June 2005 Book-to-Bill Ratio
July 29, 2005 |Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
BANNOCKBURN, Ill. — Based on monthly data collected from PCB producers that participate in IPC – Association Connecting Electronics Industries' monthly PCB Statistical Program, the June 2005 North American rigid PCB industry book-to-bill ratio declined, yet remained positive at 1.01, while the flexible circuit book-to-bill ratio increased to 1.51. Combined, the industry book-to-bill ratio increased to 1.13, reflecting the flexible circuit bookings increase.
From June 2004, rigid PCB shipments are down 3.9% and bookings are down 5.8%. Year-to-date, rigid PCB shipments are down 6.4% and bookings are down 3.8%. Rigid PCB shipments from the survey sample increased 13.3% from the previous month, and rigid bookings increased 5.3%. In the same time frame, flexible circuit shipments are up 35.7% and bookings are up 260.7%. So far this year, flexible circuits shipments are up 24.3% and bookings are up 10.3%. Compared to the previous month, flexible circuit shipments from the survey sample increased 28.4%, and flex bookings increased 141.5%.
For rigid PCBs and flexible circuits combined, industry sales billed (shipments) in June 2005 increased 3.3% from June 2004, and orders booked increased 37.4%. As of yet, combined industry shipments are down 1.0% and bookings are down 0.5%. Combined industry shipments for June 2005 are up 16.6% over the previous month, and bookings are up 38.5% over the previous month.
"Some North American flexible circuit producers saw orders spike in June," says Denny McGuirk, IPC president. "This had a big impact on the combined rigid and flex book-to-bill ratio, despite the fact that rigid PCBs continued the year at a few percentage points below last year in both bookings and sales.""This disparity in growth and volatility between the rigid and flex segments of the industry is why we now look more closely at these segments separately," McGuirk continues. "The overall PCB industry book-to-bill ratio is fine for those who want a 30,000-foot view, but the separate figures for rigid and flex tell us what's really going on. Those are the figures the analysts are following today."
IPC's monthly survey tracks bookings and shipments from U.S. and Canadian facilities, providing indicators of regional demand. These numbers do not measure U.S. and Canadian PCB production. IPC asks survey participants for the percent of their reported shipments that were produced domestically. In June 2005, 74% of total PCB shipments reported were domestically produced. Domestic production accounted for 86% of rigid PCB and 37% of flexible circuit shipments.
Flexible circuit sales also typically include some value-added services. In June 2005, the flexible circuit manufacturers in IPC's survey sample indicated that bare circuits accounted for about 43% of their shipment value reported for the month.