Innovative demands from various end-user verticals including telecommunications, automotive, medical, and industrial packaging will fuel robust growth in the flexible printed circuit board (PCB) market. Flex has become the technology of choice for advance packaging, which includes both multichip and 3-D.
New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, the growth partnership company (http://www.smt.frost.com), finds that the worldwide flexible printed circuit board markets earned revenues of over $7.3 billion in 2007 and estimates this to reach $16.4 billion in 2014.
“The physical advantages of flexible circuits are projected to be the primary factors that increase demand in the years to come, as FCP becomes the enabling technology to achieve desired size, shape, weight, or functionality in an electronic device,” says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Ashwin T Ananthakrishnan. “With high density interconnection (HDI) becoming more mainstream, it is anticipated that the growth of flexible circuits would also be hastened.”
The ability of FCPs to reduce package size, package weight, assembly time, and assembly cost, while increasing system reliability, has found great favour in the handheld wireless electronics segment. The increased demand for laptops, notebooks, personal computers, cell phones, and personal digital assistants (PDAs), coupled with the growing adoption of hard disk drives in digital music players, set top boxes, and gaming consoles are encouraging the use of flexible circuits in electronic applications.
Over 35 different companies vie for the global market space, which makes for high competition in the flexible PCB market. Most of the Asian manufacturers play a dominant role.
“Japan is the largest contributor to the FPC board market, but confines high-technology PCBs in-house, while outsourcing only known technologies to low-cost regions,” notes Mr. Ananthakrishnan. “The lack of experience of FPC manufacturing outside Japan impedes the development of FPCs in other geographic regions.”
As manufacturers in North America and Europe achieve greater expertise with the technology, they will prevail over the challenges posed by Japan and other Asian manufacturers. Ongoing consolidation of Tier 1 PCB companies acquiring Tier 2 and Tier 3 companies also supports and benefits the market, as the capacity to offer both rigid and flexible PCs becomes a key differentiator for success.
“Factors like the convergence between rigid and flexible PCs and the reduction in the organic growth across end-user verticals are likely to hamper the growth of flexible PCBs in the later half of 2014, while at present the flexible PCB market has a lot of growth potential across verticals,” says Mr. Ananthakrishnan. “In addition to this, developments and innovations across various verticals accelerate the growth of this market immensely.”
If you are interested in a virtual brochure, which provides manufacturers, end users, and other industry participants with an overview of the world flexible PCB markets, then send an e-mail to Patrick Cairns, Corporate Communications, at patrick.cairns@frost.com, with your full name, company name, title, telephone number, company e-mail address, company website, city, state and country. Upon receipt of the above information, an overview will be sent to you by e-mail.
World Flexible Printed Circuit Board Markets is part of the Surface Mount Technologies Growth Partnership Service program, which also includes research in the following markets: World Chip Bonders Markets, World LCD Manufacturing Equipment Markets, and World SMT Screen Printer Markets. All research services included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends that have been evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants. Interviews with the press are available.
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, partners with clients to accelerate their growth. The company's TEAM Research, Growth Consulting and Growth Team Membership™ empower clients to create a growth-focused culture that generates, evaluates and implements effective growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan employs over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 30 offices on six continents. For more information about Frost & Sullivan’s Growth Partnerships, visit http://www.frost.com.
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