Elmatica predict 2018 as a year with challenges and opportunities

Printed Circuit Broker Elmatica forecasts the third and fourth quarter of 2018 to be stronger than what was estimated at the beginning of the year. “We are satisfied with the results for 2017 and a growth in revenue of 26%. The growth in relation to the manufacturing base is evenly distributed between China and others countries. A pleasant indicator that business is growing in Europe for many of our manufacturing partners. Our customer base is stable, yet it increased with 9,3% last year”, says CEO of Elmatica Didrik Bech. A true crisis might arise Elmatica closed 2017 with a strong order balance, winning several high profile projects. 2018 will be interesting and we expect, it will be quite stable compared to 2017, once the accounts are closed. This year started strong due to the order balance, then slowed down a little, but it seems to be picking up again now according to Bech. “We have predicted a stable increase of around 3 - 8% for 2018. Demand for PCB is steadily increasing, yet the component situation creates disruptions in the supply chain. When the supply shortage of component is solved, one can expect a significant increase in PCB orders. I hope this increase in demand does not lead to the same challenges, as the PCB market was confronted with in late 2016 and early 2017”, says Bech. Decreasing level of PCB knowledge in many industries Advanced PCBs with exotic materials and industry compliance is increasing the average complexity of orders. Knowledge and experience are two critical factors in order to efficiently and correctly handle these aspects and people with these skills are for many companies difficult to attract. “Last year we experienced a 33 % growth for boards with 10 layers or higher and a 20% increase in flex and flex-rigid boards. This can be explained by our focus on advanced products with demand for quality and compliance, particularly within the Automotive, Medical, and Defence sector. We see some quite advanced boards for the Automotive industry and this was not the case, just some years ago. Despite this growth, we can also report a 49 % growth of 2 layer PCBs”, says Bech.