This time last year the outlook for the EMS market was somewhat uncertain. The global EMS market was forecast to increase by 4% to $217 billion, but from talking to other EMS companies, in whatever we are calling the sub $100m tier these days, it was quite a different picture.
It would appear that not all EMS companies appear well-equipped to handle the increasing level of services demanded by OEMs which requires their EMS partners to continually adapt their business models and develop broader skills and capabilities if they are to deliver these services and achieve their growth objectives.
Despite a general feeling of ‘gloom’ in the EMS marketplace, 2012 has turned out to be another successful year for Paragon. Our component distribution, pcb assembly and electro-mechanical contract manufacturing services businesses have seen growth from existing and new customers, with a resulting increase in total group revenues.
There is no doubt that recent years have been challenging for the electronics market generally but, having said that, during such times opportunities emerge for the more agile members of the EMS community as OEMs seek to reduce costs and look to their EMS partners for increasing
levels of design, manufacturing and operational support.
Paragon has continued to invest across the group, examples of this being the launch of Vigilant Components, the new SMT line due for delivery in January at JJS Electronics’ (www.jjselectronics.com)
UK facility plus additional staff in engineering, production and customer service roles. Vigilant is our component distribution specialist providing sourcing services for long lead-time and obsolete components plus component verification, testing and counterfeit detection services. The investment at JJS is a complete new SMT line which will provide increased production capacity in response to some ‘bullish’ unit forecasts for 2013 being provided by a number of our customers.
We hear a lot about the trends of "near shoring" and the policy of ‘build in the region - for the region.’ Our UK and Czech Republic based EMS facilities are ideally placed to respond to this requirement and produce products for UK, European and US based OEMs who market complex, highly configurable
products and require a UK/CEE manufacturing location, nearer to their customers. With our cable assembly, box build, and mechanical assembly capabilities plus configure-to-order and order fulfilment services, our core skills and business model addresses this requirement and we anticipate our
growth continuing into 2013 and beyond.
John Mayes, Group Managing Director,
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