Waiting for the 'Other' Bubble TO BURST

摘要

Last year was notable for capacity reductions and price erosions. Trying to hang onto customers being courted by Asian manufacturers, particularly from Taiwan and China, North American PCB makers dropped prices. Their revenues dropped, too - by 28%. All in all, it was another disappointing year. 2003 doesn't look promising, either. Going forward, what can we expect? Data from the PCI Market Research Report and N.T. Information Ltd. hold some clues. TABLE 1 cap-sulizes U.S. PCB sales by board type. According to PCI, U.S. revenues dropped 28.4% last year. An analysis of the top fabricators suggests a loss of more than 30% (more on this in a moment). The 2003 forecast is negative, thanks to the very conservative investment forecast for IT equipment -the main source of revenue for the region's PCB industry.