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Top 100 PWB producers - 1999 (by Dr. Hayao Nakahara)
January 8, 2001 |Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
Dr. Nakahara of N.T. Information Ltd shares his list of the world's 100 top-producing PWB makers in 1999. World Top 100 PWB Makers (1999)By: Dr. Hayao Nakahara N.T. Information Ltd
Once again, it is becoming more difficult every year to make accurate assessment of top PWB makers in the world because of their diversified involvement in assembly and other businesses. Currency exchange rate variations make it also difficult to compare the data with previous years. Maximum effort was made to compile the current data, but this author is afraid that some important companies may be missing and some of the figures may be wrong. He is entirely responsible for any error that may exist. Comments are welcomed as before.
Assumptions
The following assumptions were made to compile the data:
- Currency exchange rates used are as attached.
- Even when acquisitions were made in late 1999, they were assumed to be made in January.
- Only bare board portion of the business is considered for each maker.
Changing Hands
There are several entries in 1998 Table that disappeared because of mergers and acquisitions. For example, Johnson Matthey (11) which was sold to Allied Signals and its name was changed to Honeywell ACI in August of 1999. Praegitzer (29) was sold to Tyco PCB, Termbra/Kalex (33) to Viasystems Group, Philips PCB (71) to Aspocomp and AIK, Pacific Circuits (84) to TTM and ADFlex Solutions (100) to Innovex.
In 2000, several makers have changed and are changing hands. The largest one is Hadco (4) which merged with Sanmina in June. In 2000, Sanmina will be number one with expected revenue of nearly $1.5 billion. DII group merged with Flextronics and as a result, Astron (68 in 1999 list, but not in 1998 list) is now a member of Multek group, specifically a flagship member of Multek Asia. Automata (55) is being purchased by Dynamic Detail at this time of writing.
51 percent of Toshiba’s PWB operation is now a part of Dainippon Printing. Wong’s Circuits (38) was sold to a consortium of venture capital companies in August. There may be more surprises.
Observations
Due to the decline in European output, mainly caused by devaluation of European currencies, the cut-off point in 1999 is $61M as opposed to $65M in 1998. Another reason for this lower cur-off point is the absorption of some of the companies that were ranked above 100th as mentioned before. As a result, companies having lower sales turnover got “lifted”.
The output of world top 100 makers was 56 percents in 1999 while that in 1998 was 60 percents. If this figure is correct, there are two possible reasons. The first one is that the world total ($38.5 billion in 1999) may be over-estimated. The second reason may be that there are a lot of makers in the world having lower output that grew strongly.
There were 7 makers that had revenue more than $500 million in 1998. This number increased to 9 in 1999. With Flextronics/DII merger, Multek will post more than $650 million sales turnover in 2000, thus adding one more maker which boasts sales revenue exceeding $500 million, or total of 10. Nanya PCB, Daeduck Group and Samsung are prime candidates for the $500 million club. There may be even 4 makers that may achieve more than $1 billion revenue in 2000 (Sanmina, CMK, Ibiden and Viasystems Group).
Numbers of manufacturers in top 100 category by regions are changing:
Table 1. Region by Region The spread of NTI 100 manufacturers is changing 1995 1998 1999 Japan 40 42 44 United States 23 20 20 Asia 19 24 26 Europe 18 14 10
It will become harder to report accurate figures in the future because so many makers have built and are building manufacturing plants in China. Sometimes, the revenues from China are added to the revenues achieved in home countries and sometimes they are not. Distinguishing these is difficult.
Some makers are reluctant to release production figure. MMM-3M is one of the most difficult ones to get data from. In this case, guessing is very dangerous. Therefore, MMM-3M was intentionally excluded in 1999 table although its output seems to be high with its Singaporean operation added.
Japanese, non-Japan Asian and European makers that are in strong growth pattern are invariably engaged in the production of microvia hole technologies, mostly laseervia, with large investment while most US growth makers are growing mainly by acquisitions although there are some exceptions. Since the largest market sector for microvia products today is cell phone boards, the US which is not in this business except for Honeywell ACI is further falling behind the rest of the world in this growth market. This is not obvious from the Top 100 data. Will US microvia activity assume leadership as US SMT activity became so prominent after late start ? It is unimaginable at this stage to see in the US makers likes of Ibiden, Compeq, Samsung, Daeduck, AT & S and Aspocomp, etc., whose growth has been propelled by internal investment for microvia products. This author hopes to be wrong in this assessment. There is no shortage of technologies in the US PWB industry.
One interesting aspect of US PWB makers is that some of the largest makers are engaged not only in PWB fabrication but also in board assembly business. Sanmina, Viasystems, Multek and Tyco are good examples. In this sense, the US PWB industry is different from the wrest of the world. Very few non-US PWB makers are simultaneous engaged in board assembly operations.
There are no large captive shops left except for IBM and Alcatel in the western world. There are still a number of good size captive shops in Japan. Fujitsu Ltd, Hitachi Ltd, NEC Corporation, Matshushita Electronic Components, Oki Printed Circuit, Mitsubishi Electric, etc. Only exception is Toshiba Corporation which sold the majority share of its PWB operation to Dainippon Printing. Unlike in the past, they are aggressively selling to outside customers now. Samsung Electro-mechanics and LG Electronics of S. Korea are following the same pattern.
Future
2000 will see more than 10 percent growth in PWB output worldwide. In some countries such as Taiwan, the growth appears to be more than 20 percents. However, the growth pattern will be the same. Big gets bigger.
Table 2. Fixed Currency Rates, 1995-1999 Currency 1995 1997 1998 1999 Austrian Schilling 10.076 12.206 11.838 12.917 Belgian Franc 29.472 35.807 34.712 37.868 British Pound 0.634 0.611 0.598 0.618 Danish Krone 5.999 6.609 6.403 6.98 Finnish Markka 4.376 5.135 5.117 5.581 French Franc 4.986 5.839 5.643 6.158 German Mark 1.432 1.735 1.684 1.836 Irish Punt 0.624 0.66 0.678 0.739 Italian Lira 1629.45 1703.81 1665.75 1817.62 Dutch Guilder 1.604 1.953 1.897 2.069 Norwegian Kroner 6.336 7.086 7.638 7.798 Spanish Peseta 124.64 146.53 143.23 156.19 Swiss Franc 1.181 1.451 1.376 1.502 Swedish Krona 7.141 7.645 8.072 8.263 Euro 0.857 0.937 Australian Dollar 1.35 1.345 1.637 1.549 Chinese Yuan Renminbi 8.37 8.319 8.279 8.276 Hong Kong Dollar 7.74 7.73 7.747 7.78 Malaysian Ringgit 2.507 2.817 3.81 3.799 Taiwanese Dollar 26.5 27.5 32.3 31.5 Thai Baht 24.92 31.072 36.45 37.66 S. Korean Won 780 950.77 1208.5 1100 Japanese Yen 94 110 116.24 105 Singapore Dollar 1.45 1.486 1.675 1.694 Indian Rupee 32.42 36.365 42.6 43.036 Canadian Dollar 1.373 1.385 1.552 1.485 Brazilian Real 0.972 1.116 1.208 1.81 Mexican New Peso 6.447 7.92 9.885 9.543 South African Rand 3.646 5.534 5.92 6.107
Table 3. The 100 Largest PCB Companies Company Country 1999 Revenues Comments 1. CMK Corp. Japan 1,155 Finally into China. 2. Ibiden Co. Japan 992 Expanding substrate business. 3. Viasystems Group USA 890 Two separate PCB groups. 4. Hadco Corp. USA 866 Merged with Sanmina to be number one in 2000. 5. Hitachi Group Japan 844 Hitachi Ltd.* & Hitachi Chemical Group. 6. Nippon Mektron Japan 743 U.S. operations closed. Expanding in Thailand and China. The largest flex maker. 7. Tyco PCB USA 575 Growing strongly. 8. Fujitsu Ltd.* Japan 570 Vietnam factory doing well. 9. Compeq Mfg. Taiwan 530 Substrate business strong $750M in 2000 expected. 10. Multek/Dii USA 440 Merged with Astron (HK). 11. Matsushita Electronic Comp* Japan 427 ALIVH capacity being increased to 23,000 sq. m. 12. Photocircuits USA 415 New Plant in Philippines under construction. 13. IBM Group* USA 410 Endicott and Yasu. 14. Daeduck Group S. Korea 400 MLB capacity expanded. 15. Mitsubishi Gas Chem. Group Japan 392 JCI, TCI, Diatech, and Dia Electronics. 16. Sanmina Corp. USA 390 Merged with Hadco. Expecting $1.5B in 2000. 17. Nanya PCB Taiwan 370 Broke ground in Kungshan, China. Intel substrate starts in Q1 2000. 18. Honeywell ACI USA 350 Number one microvia hole board maker in the United States. 19. NEC Group Japan 317 NEC and Yamanashi Avio. Philippines finally in profit. 20. Samsung Electro-Mechanics* S. Korea 300 New HDI plant in Pusan. 21. Wus PCB Taiwan 290 Taiwan, Singapore (third plant), and China. 22. Dynamic Details USA 275 Went public in April. Bought Automata. 23. Fujikura Corp. Japan 257 Expanding Thailand operations. 24. LG Electronics* S. Korea 252 New HDI plant in Cheongju. 25. Korea Circuits Co. S. Korea 240 New HDI plant in Ansan. KCC and Korea Circuit America (KCA). 26 Toppan Printing Japan 238 Japan and U.S. New plant is being built in the United States. New substrate business. 27. Elec and Eltek Hong Kong 230 Three new HDI plants in China under construction. Twenty percent growth in 2000. 28. Daisho Denshi Japan 230 Expanding MLB facility. Strong CSP business. 29. Ruwel Group Germany 230 Trying to go public. 30. Sony Group* Japan 217 Sony Neagari and Sony Chemical. Busy with PlayStation 2 boards. 31. Shindo Denshi Japan 200 Flex BGAs and TABs. 32. Aspocomp Finland 197 Expanding in France. Bought 12.5 percent of PCB Centre in Thailand. 33. AT&S Austria 190 Number one build-up board maker in Europe. Plant in China. 34. Airex Inc. Japan 185 Japan and Philippines. 35. WWEI Taiwan 182 Expanding, expanding, expanding in Taiwan and China. 36. Gold Circuit Taiwan 180 Finally decided to go to China. 37. OPC Hong Kong 180 Expanding build-up MLB production. 38. Unitech Taiwan 165 Cell phone board leader in Taiwan. 39. Unicap Taiwan 164 BGA substrate business strong and China plant started. 40. Meiko Japan 162 Great emphasis on China. 41. Yamamoto Mfg. Japan 162 High-end MLB. 42. Sumitomo Electric Ind. Japan 152 Philippine plant growing. 43. Shinko Mfg. Japan 151 B2it process line being strengthened. 44. Chin-Poon Taiwan 147 More emphasis on MLB and China. 45. Nitto Denko Japan 144 Flex operation in China. 46. Vogt-Fuba Germany 143 3D circuits. 47. Merix USA 140 Expanding capacity for high-end MLB and growing strongly again. 48. Shinko Electric Japan 140 Substrates for Intel. 49. Elna Japan 140 More emphasis on PCBs than other products. 50. TTM USA 130 Former Power Circuits and Pacific Circuits put together. 51. Top Search Hong Kong 130 More emphasis on higher layer counts. 52. Hokuriku Denko Japan 128 Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Canada (Rexcan). 53. Petasys S. Korea 127 Formerly "Isu." 54. Wongs Circuits Hong Kong 126 Sold to a consortium of venture capital companies (August 2000). 55. Itabashi Seiki Japan 124 Japan and Philippines. 56. Shirai Denshi Japan 121 On the upward move again. 57 Sanwa Electric Group Japan 120 Not much change. 58. Innovex USA 120 Former ADFlex Solutions is the main body. 59. Alcatel Group* France 115 Not much change. 60. Eastern Co. Japan 114 The largest supplier of "super BGA" substrates. 61. Gel Technologies Singapore 110 China plant will start to contribute in 2000. 62. Nippon Electronics Japan 108 Japan and Malaysia. 63. Fujikiko Denshi Japan 106 Sprang from bankruptcy and growing under new management. 64. Kyoden Japan 106 Dynamic Details of Japan. Owner PC maker, Sordec. 65. Toshiba* Japan 105 Father of B2it technology. Sold 51 percent to Dai Nippon Printing. 66. Aika Industry Japan 105 Little known ouside of Japan. 67. NTK Japan 105 Supplier to Intel. 68. Astron Hong Kong 103 Now Multek Asia. Strong microvia technology. 69. STP Germany 98 Photovia products growing. 70. JVC* Japan 95 Liquid resin/CO2 laser champion for microvia. 71. Automata USA 95 U.S. and U.K. operations sold to Dynamic Details after Chapter 11. 72. NCI Japan 91 Little known outside Japan. 73. Yamanashi Matsushita Denko Japan 90 Japan and China. A subsidiary of laminate maker. 74. Yashin Taiwan 90 Took MLB know-how license from Matsushita Electronic Components. 75. PWC Taiwan 90 Finally started to grow. 76. Sheldahl USA 90 Making news everyday. 77. Parlex USA 90 United States and China. Growing rapidly. 78. SSK Japan 88 Microvia specialist. 79. Sakai Denshi