PCB manufacturers have successively reported news of vacations and equipment closures

Since May of this year, there have been reports of unpaid leave, closure of some equipment, and slowdown in production expansion among major PCB manufacturers.

First, Xinxing Electronics, a major IC substrate manufacturer, was exposed by employees, requiring employees to take unpaid dream-realization leave, and asking for unpaid leave in disguise.

In this regard, Xinxing said that the current industry is in a downturn and the market inventory is still in the adjustment period. In order to cope with the traditional off-season, the factory area needs to adjust manpower appropriately. The company does promote vacation activities, but all personnel measures are in compliance with regulations and have not forced Employees cooperate.

In fact, when the substrate market was booming, Xinxing Electronics once stated that almost 100% of the production capacity of substrate products before 2025 was booked.

It is precisely because the previous orders are full that many new orders cannot be filled. In the first half of this year, the overall market demand was weak, and the company's current production capacity has been relatively loose. In this case, adjust the manpower, promote vacation or it is a last resort.

And Trident-KY, which has been deeply involved in Thailand for more than 20 years and has become the largest printed circuit board manufacturer in Southeast Asia, temporarily shelved the expansion plan of the fourth factory in Thailand because the market boom was not as expected.

According to media reports, Trident's third factory in Thailand, which will be put into mass production in the third quarter of 2021, was affected by the boom, and the rate of increase in utilization rate was lower than expected, which made Trident's overall average utilization rate drop to 60-65%.

The future is uncertain, Trident decided to wait until the fourth quarter of this year to re-examine and discuss this expansion plan.

Bad news ensued.

Pegatron Group's PCB board factory KingSub (3189.TW) reported that due to the poor order receiving status, its new housing factory closed some production lines and even completely shut down the factory.

In this regard, Kinsus admitted frankly on the 23rd of this month that it did shut down some equipment in response to market conditions and encouraged employees to take vacations, but it did not completely shut down the factory.

Some industry sources revealed that the current semiconductor market is still in the stage of inventory digestion, while PCB substrate production lines are mostly produced in shifts, and manpower is normal due to order scheduling. If necessary, moderately reduce labor costs and adjust production conditions.

For PCB, the prosperity of the downstream terminal application market directly determines the prosperity of the PCB industry.

However, the current inventory disturbance and sluggish demand have not dissipated the terminal chill. Demand from downstream customers is bleak, and all major manufacturers are facing a battle for survival.

In addition to measures such as holidays, postponement of production expansion, and shutdown of equipment, many PCB manufacturers have even started price wars to grab orders at low prices in order to maintain utilization rates.

A senior person said that the vigorous development of the electronic information industry is an important boost to the development of the PCB industry. With the development of next-generation information technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and 5G communications, the demand for servers and data storage is growing rapidly. With the increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles and the rate of automotive electronics, the automotive electronics PCB market is expected to continue to expand.

Looking forward to the early release of huge demand for related terminals to save this sluggish market.