Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1443477
JANUARY 2022 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 33 I've heard that Europe has something like 25% of the market (price increase and volume com- bined) compared to 2019, which was a slow market, of course. Compared to Asia, it's about the same, and much bigger than the U.S. We see a very positive future. For us, we have been facing a total decline of the European PCB market, but which was recently stabilized. For 15 years, it really went down, and we were not expecting a recovery. But as we grew first geographically, we intro- duced products not related to electronics and assembly. e assembly market wasn't declin- ing as much because it was easy for big OEMs to import PCBs. So, the decline was mainly in PCBs and the market was going to China. Something like 90% of the PCBs sold in Europe were coming from China. en two important things happened. One is the grace to your for- mer president, who started an economic war with China. at pushed other countries to think that perhaps they would have to manu- facture at home; the Americans do not want to buy from China. Second, COVID happened, and Europe real- ized that every industrial product—masks, for example—is a strategic product. ey realized that there was no more industry in Europe, they were very dependent on China, and it could be a problem. Since then, there has been a widespread tendency in Europe to sup- port "reindustrialization relocation" with the French government, including the PCB shops. Some PCB shops received money from the EU government. Inside Europe, of course, it's controlled. And investors are coming back. So, you now have more focus on PCBs and elec- tronics, in general. is is driven by the indus- try. In Europe, the main industry in terms of volume is automotive, and it's clear that elec- tronics will be needed because of electric and autonomous vehicles. ere are some other strong industries in Europe, like aeronautic and military. Airbus, for example, is very prominent, and now is more active than Boeing, for whatever the reason. For many years, France was unable to sell its military plane, the Rafale. But just recently, they sold 80 Rafale to the Arab Emirates. One reason is that many Arabic countries (or even Europeans) feel that the U.S. is not very reli- able in its defense of Europe and the Middle East. I don't say it will be a lot of PCBs, but the PCBs for Rafale will not be made in China. Sustainable energy also drives the electron- ics market. Europe is very concerned about energy usage, green energy, etc. To make sus- tainable energy, you need electronics. Lastly, we have artificial intelligence, 5G, with many new startups in Europe run by good engineers trained at good universities. With this, you have investors from all over Europe, as well as the United States, who are putting money into the startups. With this new industry, they won't be buying PCBs in Europe because of volume, but it will be prototypes