Global PCB market to stay flat in 2020

Growth in the worldwide printed circuit board (PCB) market will be led by semiconductor package boards, data from electronics industry consulting firm Prismark showed.

Worldwide PCB market will grow 0.3% this year to be worth US$61.5 billion.

Last year, the market contracted 1.7% compared to 2018.

This return to growth was led by semiconductor package boards, which will grow 19.2% this year to be worth $9.7 billion this year, Prismark said.

It is an increase of US$1.56 billion in sales compared to 2019.

This growth was likely caused by increased demand for memory products due to the rise of remote services in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Computing board will grow 2.8% this year to be worth US$15 billion. This is a sales increase of US$400 million compared to 2019.

Communication board __ boards used for smartphones and telecommunication __ will contract 4.2% to US$16.5 billion. 

Smartphone is the main cause of this decline and boards for smartphones will contract by 10%. Multi layer boards used for telecommunication is also set to drop from delay in deployment of 5G networks.

However, growth in the worldwide PCB market will be led by communication boards going forward __ they will grow 5.5% a year on average from 2019 to 2024, Prismark said. 

Worldwide PCB market will be worth US$75.8 billion in 2024.