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For the period ended Sept. 30, the world's largest EMS company took after-tax charges of $103.8 million. Excluding items, net income rose 3% to $101.3 million.
BANNOCKBURN, IL – The September 90-day moving average shipments of all types of circuit boards rose 5.3% year-on-year, and bookings rose 36.7%, 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, 29% of the shipments reported were produced offshore.
The domestic book-to-bill ratio rose to 1.18. 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 rose to 1.07, while that of flexible circuits rose to 1.52.
“PCB sales were up in September, following the typical seasonal pattern,” said IPC in a statement. “Compared to last year, rigid PCB sales are staying flat and flexible circuits are continuing their strong growth trend. September bookings numbers are way up in both segments of the industry, which is an encouraging sign for fourth-quarter business.”
Rigid board shipments, estimated by IPC to make up more than 75% of all domestic PCBs, were down 0.5% in September vs. a year ago. Bookings rose 20.2% during the month.
Flex sales rose 28% and bookings jumped 81.4%. Value-added services made up 83% of the shipment value of flex circuits.
Year-to-date, rigid shipments are down 4.7% and bookings are off 1.2%. Flex bookings are up 28.7% and shipments are up 27.4%. Shipments of all boards are up 1.2% and bookings are up 5.9%.
Sequentially, combined shipments were up 9.4% over June, while bookings were up 32.4%. Rigid shipments were up 11.1% and bookings were up 14.9%. Flex shipments fell 4.3% and bookings were up 84.5% over June.
Seventy-one percent of PCB shipments reported was domestically produced. Domestic production accounted for 84% of rigid PCB and 33% 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.
New products, portfolio refreshes and new form factors contributed to growth. The top 5 vendors reported all-time-high shipment levels.
Sales were down just 0.2% from July. According to Dominique Numakura, an PCB analyst, the trend breaks with historical norms. August is typically the slowest month of the year for Japanese PWB makers as production declines more than 10% sequentially due to summer vacations.
Rigid board shipments grew 7.3% to 43,679 million yen from a year ago. Single sided boards declined, while double-sided and build-up boards rose -- the latter more than 20% growth yoy.
Flex circuits totaled 10,767 million yen, down 3.5% decline from July and 17.6% from last year. Single-sided flex fell 9.6% from a year ago but grew 7.9% over July. Double-sided flex fell 11.2% from July and 23% decline from 2004.
"It may be too early to confirm the recovery trend of the PWB business in Japan; however, there are several positive numbers in the METI data, and several signs of recovery in the market," Numakura wrote in his weekly newsletter. "I have been communicating with several major PWB companies in Japan, and they agree that manufacturing companies are getting more orders, and shipments will have remarkable growth from October."
