BANNOCKBURN, IL — The 90-day moving average shipments at North American printed circuit board fabricators rose 10.4% year-over-year in March, IPC said today.

Year to date, shipments are up 9.6% over last year. Shipments increased 15% sequentially.

Bookings in March rose 13.8% year-over-year. Orders were 8.5% from February, and are up 16.8% year to date.

The book-to-bill ratio retreated 60 basis points from February to 1.13. The ratio is calculated by dividing the value of orders booked over the past three months by the value of sales billed during the same period from companies in IPC’s survey sample. A ratio of more than 1.0 suggests demand is ahead of supply, and is a positive indicator for sales growth over the next three to 12 months.

The ratio has topped 1.0 every month since July 2016.

The North American PCB industry’s robust recovery continued in March,” said Sharon Starr, IPC’s director of market research. “Year-over-year growth has been consistently positive for sales in the last seven months and for bookings in the last 10 months. The outlook for this year is also encouraging, based on strong order growth in recent months and a book-to-bill ratio that has been above parity (1.0) for more than a year.”

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