June was yet another weak month for U.S. retail sales and consumer confidence--a sobering indication that the longest recession since the 1930s has yet to release its hold. The EMS industry was the last segment in the supply chain to feel the effects of the recession and EMS shipments continued to decline in June.
Other sectors of the supply chain, however, appear to have reached bottom and some are beginning the long climb back up. PCB shipments and U.S. new orders for computer and electronic products remained flat. Semiconductor shipments tuned up slightly in May and continued to go up in June. Seasonal effects have some role in this upturn, but other indicators support the view that the electronics industry is about to begin its recovery.
One leading indicator that is closely followed by electronics industry analysts is IPC's PCB book-to-bill ratio. The ratio has been climbing steadily for the past five months and climbed above parity (1.0) in May. In June it jumped to 1.12, a very encouraging sign of expected growth in North American PCB sales for the remainder of 2009.
Trends in U.S. Computer and Electronic Products New Orders and North American Sales Indices of Selected Supplier Industries
July 2008 - June 2009
The following information is provided by IPC -
Note on the graph: All indices are based on the same baseline of the average month in 2000=100, and reflect a 3-month rolling average.
Sources: IPC statistical programs for the EMS and PCB industries; SIA for semiconductor data; U.S. Census Bureau for U.S. new orders for computer and electronic products.