“It’s growth Jim, but not as we know it.” The ecsn/AFDEC 2014 forecast for the UK and Ireland component distribution is going for a 5.2% market uptick in 2014. That’s handy, especially following 2012’s 14% decline and what looks likely to be a flat year in 2013.
It is not the sharper growth spike the industry has got used to seeing after a recession.
“Is this the new norm?” wondered Aubrey Dunford, ecsn’s analyst. He is certain about continued industry uncertainty and suspects there will be a holding of breath in the industry in the next 12 to 18 months.
In 2013 the UK/Ireland DTAM (Distributors Total Available Market) looks set to stall at £1.01bn with just the December numbers to come in.
ecsn members input suggests the market will improved gradually in 2014 producing sales of £1.07bn in a total UK and Ireland component market worth £2.77bn.
Of slight concern will be the stagnation of the DTAM as part of the overall component TAM (Total Available Market) especially so in the semiconductor sector.
“We’ve seen the distribution share of the market increasing – in semiconductors from 20% to 35% in 2012 – that share didn’t increase this year and it won’t grow in 2014 either,” remarked Dunford.
Distributors and suppliers attending the forecast presentation struck an upbeat note.
While acknowledging that the recovery was patchy and slow Mouser’s director of marketing EMEA Graham Maggs indicated strong demand from design engineers. “We have enjoyed best ever sales performance this year with EMEA remaining Mouser’s top performing region with better than 28% growth on the back of similar growth last year, “he noted.
“I’ll be disappointed not to see growth in the region of 5%,” commented Bill Walker, regional vice president, north Europe at Avnet Memec. “ We focus on demand creation and that activity is quite high in Europe and the UK.”
Peter Hannon, UK managing director at Harting predicted 3 to 4% growth next year and Ben Green, technical and marketing communications manager at Harwin was also upbeat, especially about the aerospace market.
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