ATLANTA – The overall electronic components sales sentiment improved by four points in June after a 14.5-point collapse in May, but the 76.3 index score for June is still below last year's average, ECIA reported in its monthly Electronic Component Sales Trend survey.

Random thoughts as the summer kicks in:

• Is anyone surprised the Foxconn investment in Lordstown Motors has run out of gas? It was an odd marriage in many ways – the world's largest ODM buying up the assets of a failing Midwestern automaker – but Foxconn took a similar approach with Sharp and, from a technical perspective, it gained crucial knowledge in electric vehicles, which it likely will need to keep its hooks in Apple, its biggest and most important customer, which almost assuredly is developing its own vehicle as a platform for its future software products.

Lordstown is now suing Foxconn over the breakup. Critics, on the other hand, are noting the long line of Foxconn promises that failed to materialize as planned and suggesting this was all too predictable.

• Speaking of Apple, the cellphone, and more precisely, the smartphone, may be the greatest consumer invention in the past 100 years. It's certainly among the most ubiquitous. About 68% of the world's citizens have smartphones, which given a global population of about 8.05 billion, suggests some 2.58 billion or so people are still walking around without an electronic device glued to their hands. (Bully for them.) While that means a huge market remains to be captured, the market share has been steady-state for the past five years.

HELSINKI – Incap has gained a foothold in the US with the acquisition of the Pennsylvania-based EMS company Pennatronics.

TAIPEI – Global TV shipments for the second quarter will reach 46.63 million units – a 7.5% quarter-on-quarter increase and a year-on-year rise of 2%, according to the latest forecast from TrendForce.

NEEDHAM, MA – Global shipments of smart home devices continued to decline in the first quarter as shipments fell 5.6% year over year to 186 million units, according to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Smart Home Device Tracker.

SINGAPORE – Scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; Panasonic Factory Solutions Asia Pacific; and Singapore Center for 3-D Printing have developed a new multi-material printer using multi-wavelength high-power lasers for quick and easy 3-D printing of smart, flexible devices.

WASHINGTON – The US Department of Commerce announced an expansion in funding opportunities for large semiconductor supply chain projects, as well as a separate process for smaller projects coming later in the year.

PIESTANY, SLOVAKIA – GPV has entered a lease agreement for a new electronics factory here in close proximity to its two existing factories in Slovakia. The additional factory is expected to start production from early 2024.

KOBIERZYCE, POLAND – Universal Scientific Industrial recently inaugurated its second factory here, and expects to create up to 1,000 jobs once the facility is fully operational by the first quarter of 2024.

TEMPE, AZ – Benchmark Electronics recently celebrated the grand reopening of its facility in Almelo, Netherlands serving customers across the aerospace and defense, industrial, medical and semiconductor capital equipment industries.

ATLANTA – ECIA Foundation announced the release of Phase II of its PACE e-learning modules. The PACE training program is a members only e-learning set of modules that explains the basics of the electronic components industry to new employees.

BANNOCKBURN, IL – Total North American PCB shipments in May 2023 were up 6.7% compared to the same month last year. Compared to the preceding month, May shipments were down 1.9%, according to IPC's North American Printed Circuit Board Statistical Program.