PCB market grew 4.4% in 2020 led by chip package

The global printed circuit board (PCB) market grew 4.4% in 2020, led by higher-than-expected growth in semiconductor packages, according to data from electronics industry consulting firm Prismark.

The global PCB market was worth US$64 billion in 2020. Prismark has earlier estimated that the global PCB market would grow 0.3% from 2019.

The surprise jump was from high growth in semiconductor packages. The global semiconductor package market was worth US$10 billion in 2020, 23.2% higher than US$8.1 billion of 2019. The growth beats Prismark’s earlier estimate of 19.2%.

The sales rise of US$1.9 billion from semiconductor packages accounted for 70% of total sales rise in PCB of US$2.7 billion in 2020.

Last year, demand for semiconductor packages surged from servers due to the expansion in remote services from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Computing boards also showed high growth, accounting for US$16.2 billion on the sales, an increase of 11.1% from US$14.5 billion of 2019. 

Communication boards grew 1.6% from 2019 to be worth US$17.5 billion in 2020. Prismark has earlier expected a contraction of 4.2%. Communication boards refer to boards used in smartphones, telecommunication and wireless communication in automobiles.

Sales from automotive broads contracted 11.6%. Boards for appliance and industrial applications also contracted.

Prismark estimates that the global PCB market will grow 5.1% on average every year from 2019 (US$61.3 billion) to 2024 (US$78.7 billion). Semiconductor package will show the highest growth __ growing on average 9.1% year in the same time period to be worth US$12.6 billion in 2024. Communication, automotive, computing and appliance board markets will grow 5.8%, 4.5%, 3.8% and 3.8%, respectively, per year on average in the same time period.