Reflecting a varied year

2024 was a varied and for many a disappointing year. Order intake and revenues collapsed and even though the year has not come to its end, we all know already, what the revenues for 2024 will be and as well, where the bottom line will end.

The main Influencing factor was not the general situation of the economy, which was very different within Europe. It had nothing to do with late effects the Corona crisis. The automotive industry and its unclear development had some influence, but again, the automotive industry accounts for only about 15% of the European EMS revenues. The main reason for the downturn was the mess up with the supply chain in 2021/2022.

The artificial increase in order intake which was not backed by a real increase in demand from the end market and initiated by a shortage of a single group of products within the product segment of semiconductors caused panic ordering and leading to excessive storage of final products with the customers of the EMS industry. As long as this storage does not return to normal levels, the weak demand continues.

Stopp listening to people who tell you about a next chip crisis just in order to unsettle you and get you to buy stuff which you do not need. Look at your inventories and their development over the last three years. You will realize, that it was much easier to build it up than to get it back now to normal levels. You forgot what normal levels were? On average the EMS industry had raw materials in stock, equal to about 15% of annual revenues (2013-2019) and today you are still far away from this.

Help us fighting for the survival of the European PCB industry if you want to avoid a total dependance on PCB from the Far East. We are not asking you to buy all your PCB needs in Europe, there is no capacity for this anymore. But give it a small percentage of your total demand.

Finally we remember, that we will be sending out the questionnaires for the European EMS annual survey again in the first week of January. As usual, all participants receive the report of the annual survey from IPC/in4ma free of charge end of February as a benchmark for their own performance in comparison the market.

We thank our present sponsors and cooperation partners for their support and hope you continue to support our work next year as well. We wish you a joyful christmas time and may you find the time to slow down and collect strength for the next year to come.

Your in4ma team