Printed circuit board (PCB) demand change in market

June 1, 2007

Investment bank Bear Stearns & Co. released its interpretation of IPC’s April printed circuit board three-month rigid PCB book-to-bill industry survey results.

The firm notes a slight improvement to 1.00x from 0.99x as a result of the replacement of a relatively weaker January by a relatively stronger April when calculating the investment firm’s rolling average for the book-to-bill.

Meanwhile, the flexible PCB book-to-bill rose to 1.28x from 1.18x. The one-month book-to-bill rose to 1.01x from 0.95x with bookings coming in better than historical trends would dictate (-11.5% vs. -20.9% historically).

Overall, Bear Stearns analyst Kevin Kessel believes the April book-to-bill points to signs of more demand stability in the industry.

The three (3) month rigid book to bill improved, coming in at 1.00x, up 1% vs. last month and above the historical 3.3% decline.

On a year-to-year basis, rigid printed circuit board (PCB) shipments were down 12.8% while bookings were down 11.9%. Compared to March, rigid PCB shipments fell 16.7% and bookings decreased 11.5%.

The one (1) month book-to-bill bounces back. Instead of declining ~4% month-on-month as hinted by the historical trend, April’s one-month booking index was up 6.3%.

As a result, Bear Stearns’ derived one (1) month (as compared to the published 3-month rolling average) rigid book-to-bill increased sequentially to 1.01x from 0.95x in March.

For more: www.ipc.org

IPC, Bear Stearns & Co., VentureOutsource.com