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German PCB market: 10%<br>revenue growth for 2006
The revenue of the German PCB manufacturers for 2006 increased by 10.3 percent compared to the previous year, reported the VdL - Verband der Leiterplattenindustrie (association of the PCB industry) and the Fachverband Electronic Components and Systems in the German ZVEI - Zentralverband Elektrotechnik- und Elektronikindustrie.
The increase during 2006 was partly caused by higher prices of raw materials. Meanwhile some prices on the metal exchange have normalized but not for materials used in the PCB industry.
December 2006 contributed 6.2 percent to the annual revenue. However the revenue of December did not reach the level of November 2006 and also was lower than in December 2005.
Orders in December 2006 were 12 percent above the average level of the last five years. Nevertheless orders remained below the level of November. Compared to December 2005 orders decreased around 25 percent. This was caused by especially strong orders in the last quarter of 2005 due to delivery bottlenecks in Asia. The boom continued up to mid 2006. Order backlogs were occasionally up to 40 percent above the long term average.
The number of employees in December increased around 1.5 percent compared to prior year's month but however decreased slightly compared to the previous month. In the year average it remained compared to 2005 almost constant.
Positive outlook for 2007
Book-to-bill ratio in December 2006 increased compared to the previous month again slightly and reached 0.90. Demand and production did not change, so for 2007 a further increase is expected.
