Data points for North American printed circuit board (PCB) industry

September 29, 2008

Investment bank JPMorgan asks "What is the recent printed circuit board (PCB) book-to-bill ratio telling us?"

The three-month rolling rigid printed circuit board book-to-bill ticked up slightly month-on-month to 0.95x in August from 0.94x in July while the flexible printed circuit board book-to-bill declined to 0.90x from 1.01x. JPMorgan's derived one-month rigid book-tobill actually fell slightly to 0.93x from 0.95x in July as a result of bookings growing slower month-on-month than shipments.

Year-to-date bookings were still up 1.7 percent while shipments were up 5.3 percent. JPMorgan believes the book-to-bill, which remains close to parity, coupled with stable bookings, indicates a relatively stable environment for the overall North American printed circuit board market.

Rigid book-to-bill remained flat

The three-month rigid book-to-bill for August was 0.95x, up slightly month-on-month from 0.94x but below the historical sequential increase of 4.0% (which equates to a 0.98x book-to-bill). On a year-on-year basis, rigid printed circuit board shipments were up 2.5 percent and bookings were down 14.9 percent. Compared to July, rigid printed circuit board shipments increased 5.8 percent and bookings were up 3.9 percent.

One-month book-to-bill down slightly

JPMorgan's derived one-month (vs. IPC's published three-month rolling average) book-to-bill was down 1.8 percent to 0.93x from 0.95x in July, compared to the historical sequential increase of 2.6 percent.

On a month-on-month basis, the August one-month booking index was up 6.8 percent (compared to the historical increase of 17.1 percent) and the shipment index was up 8.8 percent (compared to the historical increase of 14.3 percent).

So, what's all this mean?

JPMorgan believes recent findings translate to a reasonably stable North American printed circuit board industry through August of this year...keeping in mind, data above are trailing indicators.

VentureOutsource.com, JPMorgan