On January 31, 2017, Bannockburn, Illinois-IPC-Association Connecting Electronics Industries has recently issued the Statistics Research Report of North America PCB industry in December 2016. The report shows a steady increase in December, but the Book-to-Bill Ratio (B/B ratio) fell to 0.98.

Total PCB Shipments of North America in December 2016

Total PCB shipments of North America in December 2016 increased 5.9%, compared with the same period in 2015; year-to-date shipments grew 2.9%; shipments in December rose 12.3% compared with previous month.

PCB Order Quantity of North America in 2016

North America PCB orders fell 2.2% in December 2016, resulting in -0.7% growth rate of the year-to-date orders; orders in December rose 11.6% compared with last month.

IPC

"In December, PCB sales and orders in North America were up year-on-year, but order quantity were still lower than last year," said Sharon Starr, IPC's director of market research. “Book-to-Bill Ratio ratios are within negative value range for two consecutive months. This is influenced by a seasonal factor, so we don’t need to worry about it. Orders can be expected to

resume growth in early 2017.”