ATLANTA, GA – CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY magazine today revealed its annual Top 50 list of the 50 largest electronics manufacturing services providers.

“2012 was a reminder of the somewhat fragile nature of the customer-manufacturer outsourcing relationship,” said Mike Buetow, CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY editor in chief and author of the list. “A pair of Top Tier EMS companies absorbed potentially staggering blows from the losses of their largest customers in 2012, a year in which a heretofore fast-growing mid-tier EMS also saw its largest customer shrink.”

Still, despite the revenue losses at a dozen of the Top 50 EMS companies, a record 20 companies topped $1 billion in sales for the year.

This year also marked a change in the way CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY compiled the list. ODMs have for various reasons been selectively excluded from EMS lists, despite competing with EMS companies for business in many large sectors. So while Foxconn, Flextronics and Sanmina generally are among the Top Tier EMS firms, other, often-larger players have been omitted. Because the distinction between EMS and ODM is too fine to be relevant today, several “new” companies made the list.

The 2012 Top 50 includes Foxconn, Quanta, Pegatron, Flextronics, Compal, Wistron, Jabil Circuit, Inventec, TPV and Celestica. The complete list along with 2012 revenues and commentary is available at http://circuitsassembly.com/cms/component/content/article/6-current-articles/14438-ems-top-50.