EMS Providers Should ‘Plan Prudently’ in 2025

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Dennis Reed is a senior research analyst who specializes in electronics manufacturing at Edgewater Research, a leading research and market intelligence firm covering a mix of compute—CPU, GPU, memory, both flash and DRAM, and hard drive—and insights on components which includes broad line semiconductor, IP&E distribution, and channels.

In this conversation with Dennis and IPC Executive EMS Advisor Mark Wolfe, we discuss emerging trends in 2025: AI, China Plus One, inflation, tariffs, and market shifts, particularly in automotive and milaero.

Nolan Johnson: Dennis, we’re here to talk about what’s on the minds of EMS providers in 2025, but let's start with a quick rundown of who your company serves.

Dennis Reed: Our client base is split between two markets. The first and largest is the financial community: hedge funds, mutual funds, pensions, etc. We also sell to the industry. For those, we deploy a bottom-up research approach. For example, from a top-down standpoint, you would look at GDP’s X, and we think the industry's X plus or X minus. We talk to the CEO and the CFO and use that to drive our research process.

We work to give the industry a voice. That's really the value and, ultimately, why people work with us. We add value in the bottom-up analysis. I maintain a network of people across the supply chains whom I've cultivated over the years. We have frank discussions about what's going on with the market drivers: bookings, billings, lead times, and pricing inventories. With those, you can figure out what's happening in the industry. So, when we look at the top down and the bottom up, we can identify when the business inflects in either direction—positive or negative. There could be tiny inflections here and there, of course.

To read the entire interview, which originally appeared in the January 2025 issue of SMT007 Magazine, click here.