2020 Global PCB industry market status!

PCB industry is the largest output value industry in the global electronic component subdivision industry, and also the basic industry of electronic information product manufacturing. In 2019, the output value of the global PCB industry declined slightly by 1.7% year on year to $61.3 billion due to multiple factors. Despite the impact of COVID-19 on the industry in 2020, the rapid development of 5G will increase the growth space of PCB industry. It is estimated that the global output value of PCB will reach $62.5 billion in 2020 and $79.2 billion in 2025.

The Printed Circuit Board (PCB) industry is the basic industry for the manufacture of electronic information products and the industry with the largest output value in the global electronic component subdivision industry. PCB has a wide range of applications, from small household appliances to large products such as ocean detection. As long as there are electronic components, PCB will be used for the support and interconnection between them.

Global PCB output declined slightly in 2019

Impacted by trade frictions, declining end-demand and exchange rate depreciation, global PCB output was $61.3 billion, down 1.7% from $62.4 billion in 2018. Mobile phones are the main application port of PCB. In the case of three consecutive years of decline in mobile phone shipments, the overall global output value of PCB can still maintain a small range of decline. 5G infrastructure construction is also a key factor, which pulls back a part of PCB demand.

The Chinese market outperformed other regions

From the perspective of regional market, Chinese market outperforms other regions. In 2019, the output value of PCB industry in China was about $32.9 billion, with a slight increase of 0.7%, accounting for about 53.7% of the global total. It was the only region that grew in 2019, which was mainly due to the high growth of related PCB suppliers of 5G base.

In 2019, despite the trade war between China and the United States, Huawei's market share in the 5G era still has room to grow as countries around the world adopt Huawei equipment. With the rapid development of 5G, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and other industries, as well as industrial support, cost and other advantages, the market share of China's PCB industry will further increase.

In addition, the total output value of Japanese circuit boards in 2019 was about $5.288 billion, down 2.8% year on year, accounting for 8.6% of the global market. From the perspective of the product layout of the Japanese circuit board industry, in order to avoid the fierce competition of mobile applications, Japanese softboard companies adopt the strategy of approaching the automobile, robot, biomedical and other emerging applications by using mobile phones. How the results will be remains to be seen.

In terms of applications, most PCB segments also declined in 2019, but the demand for infrastructure applications such as 5G networks and data centers continued the growth trend of 2018, with the output value of server/data storage growing 3.1% year on year. The computer sector, which includes server/data storage, accounts for 28.6% of global PCB output. Overall, however, communications electronics remain the most important application area of PCB industry, accounting for 33.0% of the global PCB application market in 2019.

Seven Chinese manufacturers made the global TOP10 list

The growth of downstream industry is a major favorable condition for the development of PCB enterprises. Benefiting from the important position of Taiwan ODM/EMS manufacturers, module manufacturers and semiconductor enterprises in the PC and mobile phone industry chain, Zhen Ding, Xinxing, Huatong, Jian Ding and other Taiwanese PCB enterprises have successively ranked among the top ten PCB manufacturers in the world. Among them, the FPC giant Zhen Ding, which is closely related to Apple's business, became the world's first PCB manufacturer in 2019. Overall, seven Chinese companies made the list of the TOP10 global PCB manufacturers in 2019.

The scale of output is expected to continue to expand

In 2020, although COVID-19 has disrupted the progress of 5G, countries are still struggling in the 5G competition. While the epidemic is burning, countries are monitoring the development of the epidemic through digital technology, and have foreseen the turning point of 5G, cloud and AI industries in advance. As a result, future digital life situations such as remote teaching, intelligent diagnosis and treatment, and AI for industrial risk control have been started in advance.

In terms of the overall development trend in 2020, 5G will still be the key driving force for industrial economic growth. It is estimated that the growth rate of global PCB output value in 2020 will be 2%, and the output value scale will be about 62.5 billion US dollars. Global PCB output is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of about 5% between 2020 and 2025, with global PCB output expected to approach $80 billion in 2025.