2012 was a reminder of the somewhat fragile nature of the customer-manufacturer outsourcing relationship. 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. To recap, in June, RIM announced it would cut ties with Celestica. (RIM also dumped Flextronics.) Then in the third quarter, Juniper let it be known it would depart from Plexus. This was an even bigger surprise, as Juniper not only made up 16% of Plexus' sales, but had been the EMS firm's largest customer since 2003.
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