The PCB industry has benefited from new applications and new technology. Recently, shareholders' meetings regarding many PCB manufacturers are held consecutively and the management has unanimously considered the US-China trade war as the greatest uncertainty for the industry. However, PCB manufacturers share a relatively positive prospect for the second half of the year as a result of the new applications such as 5G and the shipments of new products that continue to increase.
 
Charles C. Wu, chairman of Compeq, said that although there have been conflicts between the US and China, the operation has been improved gradually. As indicated from the combined revenues in the first five months, there is growth when compared to the same period in 2018. What will follow will be the concerns over the close observation upon the US-China trade conflict and the impact of the ban on Huawei. Based on the resilience capability of order processing and the manufacturing capacity, the operation this year is expected to be better than that of last year.

Charles C. Wu analyzed that this year’s focus on the approach of customers in Mainland China for mobile phone circuit gearing to the Anylayer (any layer) design should remain the same so that it will expand the demand for high-end HDI (high-density connection) board capacity. As for the Huawei incident, it has not created any particular significant impact on the company so far but it is expected to have an impact in the future; continue to pay attention to the US-China trade conflict, sanctions on Huawei, and the impact brought along from the preparation and the related factor for components by Huawei itself on the overall mobile phone market.

Chiao, Yu-Heng, chairman of Hannstarboard, pointed out that it has become apparent, recently, that there are urgent orders rushing in with the restart of the US-China trade war and that has helped in the stronger increase of demands in the second quarter in comparison to previous years. In addition, the performance in May and June is positive but it is necessary to observe the development of the trade war between the US and China in the second half of the year. If this trade war is to stop, Jiao believes there will be an increase in orders.

        
Song Gong-Yuan, Chairman of Co-tech (the upper-stream copper-laminated material manufacturer of PCB) also believes that many variables are existent within the external environment of the US-China trade war but that there should be urgent orders in the second half of the year. For the last three years, Co-tech has been working to avoid the general copper-lamination materials red sea competition and actively positioned itself in 5G high frequency and high-speed materials to carry out product differentiation. With 5G- related products being cleared of certification by major manufacturers, products have begun to ship out in the fourth quarter and it should be heading into the harvesting period next year. (News source: Liberty Times)