Stan Renals, CEO, Cobar Europe & Cobar Solder Products

In 2022 Heller's business reached a near-record level for Electronics Assembly and hit a record for Semiconductor packaging. During this very high demand, our exceptional operations team was able to mitigate the Shanghai COVID lockdown of Q2 by shifting production to Korea and ramping China production in a closed-loop mode, ultimately catching up with backlog by late Q3.

Heading into 2023, we see demand moderating overall but anticipate growth in certain segments such as automotive and power electronics that require low void and fluxless reflow solutions. Heller plans to release innovative products to meet the needs of leading customers in these sectors, along with new solutions for advanced packaging.

After nearly three years of travel restrictions, our US team was able to begin visiting our Korea operations this summer due to loosened quarantine regulations and we are looking forward to the possibility of normal travel to China as early as Q2 2023 following the recent lifting of zero-COVID.

The pace of supply chain deglobalization accelerated in 2022 because of zero-COVID and as a result Heller has seen growth in the Americas, Europe, SE Asia, and India and expect this trend to continue.

Despite the current geopolitical uncertainties and macroeconomic headwinds, we remain optimistic on the long-term industry growth drivers including power electronics for automotive and green energy applications, high performance computing, and artificial intelligence.