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Development of the PCB industry in Europe
July 3, 2003 |Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Development of the PCB industry in Europe
by Michael Gasch,
June 2003
It is no secret at all that the global PCB industry has suffered a great deal during the past two year.The consequences in Europe are shown by a glimpse to the annual statistics that is published now. The German trade association VdL/ZVEI ) has inquired not only at its members but has asked all PCB manufacturers in Austria, Germany and Switzerland to participate. In addition to this own inquiries with further companies all over Europe has been conducted. With special pleasure can be observed that a number of manufacturers in Central Europe (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Slovak Republic) took part as well. The result of the inquiry, however, is sobering. The turnover 2002 of 3,25 bln EUR has reached its lowest level since 1995 (table 1)
turnover million EUR % 1994 2.815 100% 1995 2.973 106% 1996 3.831 136% 1997 4.142 147% 1998 4.335 154% 1999 4.504 160% 2000 4.775 170% 2001 4.232 150% 2002 3.250 115%
Table 1: development of turnover in million EUR
The top 10 manufacturers in Europe in principle have been able to maintain their share of the total value, which represents - with few exceptions - about 1/3 of all PCBs manufactured in Europe (table 2)
turnover of top 10 % million EUR 1994 861 30,6% 1995 1.014 34,1% 1996 1.111 29,0% 1997 1.470 35,5% 1998 1.579 36,4% 1999 1.637 36,3% 2000 1.951 40,9% 2001 1.469 34,7% 2002 1.049 32,3%
Table 2: percentage of top 10 manufacturers in Europe on total production
It has to be said, however, that names and ranking of the top 10 manufacturers have changed considerably.
1994 2002 1 STP, Germany AT & S, Austria (1) 2 Philips-Group, Austria, Netherlands, France, Ruwel-GroupDenmark, Germany 3 Fuba, Germany Aspocomp, Finland (1) 4 AT & S, Austria Vogt-Fuba, Germany 5 Siemens-Group, Germany Schweizer Electronic AG, Germany 6 Mommers, Netherlands (2) Alcatel-Group,Belgium (3), France, Italy 7 Schweizer Electronic AG, Germany Cire-Group, France 8 ISL, UK (2) Würth-Group, Germany 9 Ericsson-Group, Sweden (2) Multek-Group, Sweden (3) Germany 10 Zincocelere, Italy (2) Viasystems (Mommers), Netherlands
(1) these companies are as well active outside Europe. This table shows just their (estimated) share in Europe
(2) during 1997 - 2001 these companies belonged to Viasystems. They either do no longer exist or have been sold as MBO. The only European production remaining in Viasystems is the Dutch site (formerly Mommers)
(3) these locations have been closed during 2002
Table 3: Top 10 manufacturers in 1994 and 2002
In the course of the past 7 years the number of manufacturers was reduced by 41% (from 767 down to 449):
# of manufacturers % 1996 767 100% 1997 724 94% 1998 672 88% 1999 612 80% 2000 561 73% 2001 490 64% 2002 449 59%
Table 4: number of manufacturers in Europe
While in former years in most cases smaller manufacturers had to close - because of capital consideration and/or succession - the past 4 years are showing that more an more medium to large companies are caught. Table 4 shows the acceleration of the process, which is reflected in closures or take-overs during the past 12 months (closure of Norrköping PCB and Multek- both in Sweden, take-over in Austria of AIK by AT&S -- and in Germany of PPE by Würth -). In addition table 5 shows that within the groups major shifts have taken place and annual revenues have dropped to 40% of the previous year.
Annual turnover 1999 2000 2001 2002 < 1,5 Mio EUR 221 196 200 198 1,5 - 7,5 Mio EUR 263 242 173 161 7,5 - 25 Mio EUR 87 87 79 62 > 25 Mio EUR 41 36 38 28 612 561 490 449
Table 5: number of companies per annual turnover
Table 6 shows that the last "good" year was in 2000 and it is obvious that the down-trend could not have spared the number of jobs:
number of jobs % 1996 40.132 100% 1997 40.014 100% 1998 41.623 104% 1999 41.264 103% 2000 44.657 111% 2001 38.692 96% 2002 29.005 72%
Table 6: development of jobs since 1996
In order to secure survival one of the available recipes is the recommendation to move towards higher technologies. But a look at the statistics shows that this as well not really is true:
Development of technologies million EUR Npth Pth MLB Microvias Spec. types Total 2000 483 1183 2390 360 360 4776 2001 347 1192 1929 423 341 4232 2002 352 1027 1525 363 131 3398
Table 7: development of technologies produced in Europe
Obviously, demand for lower technologies (npth and pth) is going down but reached a fairly constant level. But it is very apparent that as well those technologies considered as "high tech" are losing ground as well: MLBs, HDI (microvia boards) and special types (flex, flex-rigids etc). The change in purchasing pattern towards Asia is showing here. This is a short sighted policy in shifting purchase volume to one region only because in most cases does not take into account additional cost for logistics, communication, interest, claims, rework etc. (those cost are occuring in other departments than the purchasing dept). And it is overlooked that this shift is weakening and eventually destroying the remaining companies.
This development is shown in table 8:
Amerikas Europe Asia Rest of world 1998 27,0 % 17,6 % 54,2 % 1,2 % 1999 28,0 % 13,3 % 57,4 % 1,3 % 2000 27,5 % 12,5 % 57,7 % 2,3 % 2001 24,3 % 14,5 % 58,1 % 3,1 % 2002 21,3 % 11,5 % 63,9 % 3,3 %
Table 8: share of production in main regions
Any increase took place in the Peoples Republic of China, while the other principal producers (Japan, Korea, Taiwan) were barely able to maintain their share compared to 1998.
© Michael Gasch