Demand in the SMT industry grew significantly in 2011. This is something that cannot be denied. It does not simply represent a recovery on the Asian markets; in Europe too, and particularly in Germany, more investment has again been made in high-quality manufacturing equipment. There are some 700 EMS providers across Europe, with the sectors of Automotive, Medical, Control & Instrumentation, Industrial and Telecommunications (AMCIT) exhibiting healthy growth this year.
Uncertainty can nevertheless be felt, owing to the bad news from the world of finance, in both the private and more recently, also public sectors. Large and continuous fluctuations in sentiment about the stability of European economies has affected the electronics markets in Asia and America as well as here. Uncertainty stifles manufacturing investment commitments perhaps even more than recessive economies.
There are repeated, successful examples of companies such as Intel using recessionary times to retool their factories and be in an improved competitive position ahead of the next upward cycle. By extreme contrast, there are today numerous examples of companies holding unprecedented quantities of cash because it is much less certain in which direction we are actually moving at any given time. Grave dangers remain for 2012.
