What will happen to the PCB industry in 2019?

In 2018, many new technology products performed relatively well, especially the new technologies such as flexible board, flexible-rigid board, and substrate-like pcb(SLP) have relatively strong growth momentum, and there has been significant progress in the introduction of new applications. Most of the manufacturers in this area have maintained good operating results this year.

From the application field, server and Netcom products can be said to be the stealth champions of this year. Many rigid board factories that have invested in personal computer (PC) and laptop computer (NB) have actively transformed in the past few years, and finally ushered in the opportunity to warm up the demand for servers and Netcom products. As data center demand continues to rise and 5G specifications are about to enter the commercial transition phase, these two applications will have the opportunity to continue to grow in 2019.

However, in 2019, the PCB industry may not be as smooth as the past two years. Except for the global political and economic environment, the growth of mobile phone applications is obviously stagnant, and the timing of 5G business opportunities is still unclear, factors such as the slowdown in the popularity of new applications for automotive electronics, have made it possible for manufacturers to be conservative in their views on next year, and they must be careful in their operations.

For 2019, the PCB industry's optimism over the past few months is now much more conservative, and the embarrassing situation in which the environment is full of uncertainty is naturally the key. For the PCB industry, tariffs are not really worth worrying about and the transfer of production capacity will not be considered by the PCB industry. Whether the trade war will have an impact on the global economy and weaken the economy will be the key to really affecting the PCB industry.