Downward trend on the German PCB market continues

As the global downturn in demand for heavy machinery and vehicles pressures the export economy, many PCB customers delayed the delivery of their orders. The resulting under utilisation significantely enhances competition. Incoming orders - for February as well as the cumulative figure for the first 2 months - reached less than half of the respective periods in 2008. Orders are placed on a short-term planning. Even customers, which operated in the past with long-term delivery plans - have turned back to placing single orders. Thus, production predictability is very difficult. The book-to-bill ratio as an indicator of the medium-term trend reaches 0.78. A similarly low figure for February was only recorded in 2001, after the so-called IT bubble burst.