SURRY, UK - BPA Consulting, an international firm reportedly specializing in emerging technologies and the industrial sectors, has released a report that states that despite pessimistic predictions, PCB production will continue to increase this year.

The report also gives optimistic figures for the next five years, predicting that global PCB production will rise to $54.7 billion in 2008 (from $50.7 billion estimated in 2007), and up to $71.4 billion by 2011.

The report claims to analyze a number of key issues, such as how the growth rate is affected by factors including the lag between the demand and price cycle, natural price erosion, the shift towards higher technologies and the move of manufacturing to lower-price geographical regions.

The company explains in their report that while the data is based on the most up-to-date industry information, extrapolating predictions for the PCB market is based only on current available import and export data.

The summary forecasts:

Overall world production of PCBs was up from $42.7 billion in 2005 to $47.9 billion in 2006, with an early estimate of $50.7 billion for 2007, representing worldwide growth of 5.6% in 2007.

The report agrees that while 2007 was a much weaker year for the industry than 2006, with negative growth in North America, the upturn towards the next peak cycle started in 2007 and will continue into 2009, which is predicted to be another solid growth year for PCB world production.

North America and Europe combined account for less than one-fifth of the world's PCB production value, and this share is expected to fall further from 18% in 2006 to 13% by 2011.

Worldwide finished board area for 2006 reached 281 million square meters, while early estimates for 2007 indicate an increase in board volume to about 295 million square meters, up slightly more than 2%.

Since 2002, China has become the world's largest producer in terms of volume, with a 47% share in 2006, and this is expected to increase to 52% by 2011, according to the report.

The fastest growing region, both in value and volume, will continue to be Asia with production in China still exceeding other countries in this region, and driven by a shift in production toward multilayer boards.