A preliminary survey in IPC’s new Pulse of the Electronics Industry global data service reveals a bullish outlook for most segments of the electronics industry, especially for equipment manufacturers and printed circuit board (PCB) fabricators. These industry segments showed the highest levels of confidence in the direction of current-state indicators. Along with OEMs, they reported the most positive expectations for growth in the next six and 12 months.

Most participating companies reported the current direction for sales, orders and profit margins as going up. For the next six months, they predict increasing growth for sales, production, markets, exports, capital investment and number of full-time employees. The 12-month business outlook is positive according to 87.5% of the responding companies.

IPC is developing the Pulse of the Electronics Industry global data service to provide a quarterly outlook for the electronics industry overall, as well as by region, industry segment and company size. The program is in the final stage of beta testing. More than 100 companies participated in the preliminary third quarter 2017 survey, and participants received a comprehensive report on the results.

For more information, visit www.ipc.org.