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Punching Out: How Many PCB Companies Are There in North America Now?

When I am asked how many PCB shops are still in the U.S., my answer is usually, “About 130. How many do you want to buy?” However, I do not really know the number. My job is either to sell PCB shops or help people buy them, not to count them. I probably should keep better track of them, but many are small (70% have revenue below $10 million), or they say they are making boards even if they rent out their facility as an auto repair shop. Often, owners do not want to talk to me because they equate me with a cemetery plot salesman.

According to our admittedly imperfect database, there are now 146 PCB manufacturing companies in the U.S. and Canada. For reference, there were about 200 shops in 2020, and 170 in 2022. This includes companies that manufacture PC boards in the U.S. and Canada and excludes companies that purely import/distribute boards or that are only assembling boards.  

Please note that we are counting PCB companies, not facilities, so TTM Technologies counts as one, Summit Interconnect counts as another, AdvancedPCB counts as one, and so on. The total number of facilities is probably 20 to 30 higher than the number I’ve shared.

The decline in the number of shops should be alarming to those responsible for security, as PCBs are a critical component of many strategic products. However, the remaining companies appear to be larger, stronger, and more competitive. Protective actions by the U.S. government in recent years seem to be helping, and many believe that reshoring is real.

According to our records, there have been 45 acquisitions in the space in North America between 2020 and 2025. Most sales are due to the owners' retirements, and most deals for companies with revenue above $10 million are supported by private equity. Those guys are no dummies, so there must be something attractive about the industry.

There have been several cases in which owners decided to close their fabrication operations to focus on brokering boards and/or assemblies. It seems that most shops, in addition to manufacturing bare boards, also broker boards and do assemblies, whether in-house or through a third party. We are aware of only a few new “greenfield” companies in the sector, such as SpaceX in Texas, GreenSource in New Hampshire, and Schweitzer Engineering in Moscow, Idaho.

The current breakdown of companies by estimated annual revenue is:

• $25 million or greater: 21
• $10–25 million: 21
• Under $10 million: 104

By geography, the top locations for company headquarters are:

• California: 48 (29 in southern California, and 19 in northern California) 
• Illinois: 21
• Canada: 12 
• Minnesota: 10
• Texas: 8
• New Jersey: 6
• Pennsylvania: 5

We are basing our count on 20+ years of industry experience. While we might not hear all the news about closings and acquisitions, it has been quite a while since we learned of a new (to us) PCB facility. It is not easy to track the small or captive shops, whether we are looking at their revenues or even if they are truly making boards.

Getting a true figure would require actually visiting each shop and poking your head into each facility. For example, one owner swore that he made boards, but when I visited, I saw he had tarps over all the equipment. In the big picture, the trend is toward fewer PCB companies and those that get increasingly bigger. This may be helped by recent U.S. legislation and government incentives that promote the industry, benefiting the larger companies in the sector.  

While ITAR and other policies/legislation help to prop up the industry, it is very difficult to establish or move a PCB shop. The few new shops since 2000 have been captive and supported by large parent companies. It will take a leap in technology before we see more venture-capital-backed PCB companies.

My professional guess is that in the next 10 years, about half of the shops under $10 million will be sold to larger shops and consolidated. There will be several mergers of the larger shops, so the actual number of PCB companies will drop below 100. However, those that remain will be in better shape to invest in equipment and technology. Maybe someday I will take the summer off to drive around and count them all.

Tom Kastner is the president of GP Ventures, an investment banking firm focused on sell-side and buy-side transactions in the tech and electronics industries. GP Ventures has offices in Chicago and Tokyo, with five people in total. Tom Kastner is a registered representative of, and securities transactions are conducted through, StillPoint Capital, LLC—a Tampa, Florida, member of FINRA and SIPC. StillPoint Capital is not affiliated with GP Ventures.