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IPC — Association Connecting Electronics Industries announced today the July findings from its monthly North American Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Statistical Program. Sales and order growth both continued trending upward.

Sales and Orders Improving

Total North American PCB shipments decreased 1.5 percent in July 2013 from July 2012, and bookings increased 10.2 percent year over year. Year to date, PCB industry shipments were down 4.2 percent and bookings were up 0.1 percent. Compared to the previous month, PCB shipments in July were down 13.7 percent and bookings were down 3.2 percent. Bookings exceeded shipments in July and the PCB book-to-bill ratio strengthened to 1.06.

Although still not quite in positive territory, year-on-year sales growth has been improving steadily over the past three months, bolstered by solid growth in orders since the beginning of 2013. Most of the improvements in July’s results are due to the strong performance of the rigid PCB segment.

“Month-to-month growth is typically negative in the first month of the quarter due to seasonal trends,” said IPC’s director of market research Sharon Starr. “Year-on-year growth is the best indicator of industry performance, and these growth rates in July continue to be encouraging,” she explained. “Rigid PCB year-on-year sales growth in July reached positive territory for the first time in more than two years. Orders in both rigid and flex segments were strong, resulting in a slight uptick in the PCB book-to-bill ratio.”

Detailed Data Available

This month’s edition of IPC’s North American PCB Market Report, containing detailed July data from IPC’s PCB Statistical Program, will be published this week. The monthly report presents detailed findings on rigid PCB and flexible circuit sales and orders, including separate rigid and flex book-to-bill ratios, military and medical market growth, demand for prototypes, and other timely data. This report is available free to current participants in IPC’s PCB Statistical Program and by subscription to others.