PCB market grows in November

Taking work days into account (one less than last year) the increase in sales goes up to 8.1 percent, writes German industry association ZVEI PCB and Electronic Systems. The main industries - Automotive and Industrial Electronics - showed a 'satisfactory performance' in 2013. This is particularly true for the automotive sector as the demand for premium models increased (and with it the demand for electronics). But also the sectors machine engineering and medical electronics enjoyed a satisfactory growth in 2013. Due to the positive economic outlook for the current year 2014, the association expects this trend to continue. Order intake was down by 8.8 percent YoY. YTD (period January to November 2013) however, the order intake grew by 1.7 percent. This growth has been of particular beneficial to smaller companies. The book-to -bill ratio stood at 1.06. The number of employees decreased by 2.7 percent. However, larger companies starting to add new staff again.