Elk Grove Village, IL, March 29 - EMS company SigmaTron International Inc. has signed a non-binding letter of intent to purchase Able Electronics Inc., headquartered in Hayward, CA, with an additional manufacturing facility located in Tijuana. The company also announced its intent to sell its Las Vegas operation to Grand Products Inc.

Able is an ISO 9001:2000 certified, privately-held EMS company serving OEMs in the test and measurement, medical instruments, telecommunications, computer peripherals, industrial controls and genetic research industries.

Peter Dennis, Able's president, said, "Combining with SigmaTron completes one of our strategic goals - increasing capabilities domestically while reducing time to market and total cost for our customer base...With SigmaTron's international footprint we believe we will be in a position to offer our customers a wider range of solutions to their EMS requirements."

SigmaTron operates manufacturing facilities in Elk Grove Village, Las Vegas, Acuna, Mexico, Fremont, CA and Suzhou-Wujiang, China, with engineering and materials sourcing offices in Taipei, Taiwan.

The Vegas EMS center specializes in the assembly of electronic products and cables for a range of customers primarily in the gaming industry.

Grand Products is contract assembler of coin-op games and gaming machines. Based in Des Plaines, IL, the company is licensed by the Nevada Gaming Commission to manufacture and distribute gaming devices.

Terms of the proposed transactions were not disclosed.

RICHARDSON, TX -- TXP-Texas Prototypes Inc., a provider of prototype electronics manufacturing services, will double its facility, expanding to 31,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing and lab space. 

The newly built-out facility includes a 2,500 sq. ft. cleanroom.

The company said 40 to 50 people will be employed at the location. 

Michael C. Shores, president and CEO, said, "The newly acquired facility will accommodate the company's current expanding business needs while providing continued growth potential for the company and all of its divisions."

 

MILPITAS, CA -- Top tier EMS maker Solectron will restate earnings from fiscal 2002, 2003 and 2004 due to "errors related to account reconciliations and tax account roll-forwards." Solectron said it did not believe the errors were material to its results.

On a conference call last year, CEO Mike Cannon said the company is not for sale.

The company last week said its February quarter net loss narrowed to $3.4 million, from a loss of $68 million last year. Revenue fell to $2.76 billion from $2.89 billion.

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FRAMINGHAM, MA - Despite strong growth in the fourth quarter and the rest of 2004, delayed recovery in Japan and a cautious outlook in the U.S. have led to slightly lower expectations for worldwide PC shipments in 2005.

Research firm IDC today lowered its forecast for total worldwide PC shipments for 2005 to 9.7%, from 10.1% in November. The good news: Demand is likely to shift into later years and the growth forecast remains above 8% through the end of 2009.

Total shipments are expected to reach 195.4 million in 2005 on growth of 9.7% with total shipment value growing by 5.3% to $209 billion, IDC said. Shipments are projected to reach 273 million in 2009 with a value of $245 billion.

"Despite fears of slowing growth, particularly in the U.S. consumer segment, the PC market was fairly robust in the fourth quarter of 2004 with strong demand in the consumer and business segments," said Loren Loverde, director of IDC's worldwide quarterly PC tracker. "While overall growth in 2005 will be slower than 2004, we expect to see continued strength in portables and in emerging markets. Although worldwide growth will slip into single-digits this year, long-term drivers such as mobile adoption, replacement of older systems, and growing penetration will support healthy growth through the end of the decade."

"While IT buyers in the United States have indicated firm intentions to buy in 2005, we have kept the U.S. forecast modest because of what we see as a host of risk factors," added Roger Kay, vice president of client computing at IDC. "These factors include a recovery that appears to be getting long in the tooth, a lack of jobs growth, rising budget and trade deficits, persistently high oil prices, a treasury-draining foreign war, rising interest rates, a stock market that continues to move sideways, and record-low household savings rates."

Following a second year of nearly 11% growth, the U.S. market is expected to slow to 7.6% growth in 2005. Consumer growth may fall to low single digits in the first quarter of 2005 but full-year growth should top 7%. Business growth will lead the market while the public sector is expected to trail other segments.

Adoption of portable PCs continues to fuel growth in Western Europe. Growth in portable PC shipments should top 20% in 2005 following over 30% growth in 2004 and nearly 40% in 2003. The consumer segment remains a key driver with portable shipments growth of more than 40% outpacing the commercial segment by roughly 5 points. Growth of desktop PC shipments is expected to slow to low single-digits from nearly 10% in 2004.

In Japan, the business segment continues to lead the market, although relatively strong growth of 12% in 2004 is expected to fall below 5% in 2005. Unfortunately, the consumer and public sectors have not recovered, and growth in these segments is expected to be roughly flat in 2005.

For the rest of the Asia-Pacific market, growth is expected to slow from over 16% in 2004, but remain in double-digits despite the Indian Ocean Tsunami and efforts to control China's economy. Public sector growth is expected to outpace growth in business segments by the end of the year, while consumer growth will slip into single-digits.