EMS market to follow<br>overall electronics industry growth

To follow the explosive growth of consumer electronics applications the EMS industry will grow significantly as it represents about 20 percent of the total electronics output that approximately will grow to reach $1.5 trillion by 2010. The revenue in the EMS industry is expected to grow from $200 billion last year to $230 billion this year. "We see outsourcing services continuing to evolve," Jim Walker, a semiconductor manufacturing research vice president from Gartner Dataquest notes. "We've always been interested in quality, the best price we can get, customer service, technical support and short lead times. But now we are seeing that outsourcing services providers are trying to provide more value-added services, going up and down the food chain, grabbing anything they can to service their clients. They are providing supply chain management services, inventory, technical and design support, technology roadmaps, locality (China). What is really happening is that the outsourced services company is being used as a virtual customer factory," he continues.