EMS market faces downturn but cautious optimism for 2026
At Evertiq Expo Gothenburg 2025, Mareike Haass from in4ma and Christoph Solka from the Global Electronics Association presented fresh survey data on the state of the European electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry, highlighting both the current decline and expectations for recovery.
According to in4ma’s half-year survey, which gathered input from 224 companies representing 21% of the European EMS market, the first half of 2025 saw a decline of 8.1% compared to the same period last year. When combined with the final quarter of 2024, the result still showed a negative development of 3.1%.
Looking ahead, however, respondents indicated slightly more optimism. For the second half of 2025, the survey suggests a modest increase of 0.9%. Overall, when combining 2024 and 2025, the industry remains down by 2.1%.
Haass noted that while the forecast for 2026 from the survey currently stands at an 11.9% increase, she believes that figure is overly optimistic:
“I’m sure that we will see growth next year, but not a double-digit growth,” she said.
At the time of the presentation, in4ma had collected real data from 23% of companies for 2025, showing an overall decline of 3.8%. Haass expects the year to close with a small increase, possibly in the range of 2 to 3 %.
Despite the slow first half of 2025, Haass concluded that there is reason for cautious optimism about the remainder of the year and into 2026.
Mareike Haass and Christoph Solka are scheduled to return to the stage at the next Evertiq Expo in Warsaw on October 23, 2025, where they will host the keynote “EMS-Industry, thoughts about the future.” The session promises an in-depth review of 2025 and an informed perspective on the challenges and opportunities ahead for the European EMS industry.
