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BANNOCKBURN, IL – The
July 90-day moving average shipments of all types of circuit boards
rose 4.7% year-on-year, and bookings rose 4.1%, according to the latest
poll of North American PCB fabricators.
A
large percentage of the production includes boards built offshore and
distributed by North American vendors. According to IPC, 32% of the
shipments reported were produced offshore, up from 26% in June.
The
domestic book-to-bill ratio rose 0.03 points to 1.16. The ratio is
based on data collected by IPC from rigid and flex producers and is
calculated by dividing three months worth of orders by sales. A ratio
over 1.0 is considered an indicator of rising demand.
The ratio for rigid PCBs was down 0.02 to 0.99, while that of flexible circuits rose 0.20 points to 1.71.
Rigid
board shipments, estimated by IPC to make up more than 75% of all
domestic PCBs, were down 2.7% in July vs. a year ago. Bookings fell
11.9% during the month.
Flex sales rose 32.7% and bookings jumped 53.3%. Value-added services made up 56% of the shipment value of flex circuits.
“July
is historically a slower month than June for PCB sales,” IPC said in a
statement. “Yet the book-to-bill ratios for flexible circuits and
combined PCBs continued to rise in July, due to the spike in flexible
circuit bookings in June and the trend for flexible circuit bookings to
outpace shipments substantially, which continued in July.”
Year-to-date,
rigid shipments are down 6.4% and bookings are off 3.8%. Flex bookings
are up 16.1% and shipments are up 25.6%. Shipments of all boards are
down 0.2% and bookings are up 0.1%.
Sequentially,
combined shipments were down 16.4 over June, while bookings fell 27%.
Rigid shipments were down 19.4% and bookings were off 19%. Flex
shipments fell 6.7% and bookings were down 37.9% over June.
Sixty-eight
percent of PCB shipments reported was domestically produced. Domestic
production accounted for 81% of rigid PCB and 32% of flexible circuit
shipments in July, IPC said.
In a statement, IPC cautioned that month-to-month comparisons should be made with caution as they may reflect cyclical effects.
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