From Shenzhen to Southeast Asia: The changing map of PCB production.
Accurately investigating the revenues of the world’s largest PCB fabricators is confounding: Each year is filled with mergers and acquisitions, and no public records exist for a number of fabricators because they are either privately owned or part of large corporations which do not disclose the revenues of their PCB operations. As years go by, more “estimates” creep in. As a result, the author’s confidence in the data diminishes each year. Nevertheless, the NTI-100 continues to reflect the status of the global PCB industry; its size and market trends can be deduced from the fabricators listed.
For clarification, while ranked lists often refer to the 100 largest, in this case, “100” refers to companies with printed circuit board manufacturing revenues over $100 million. A record 159 companies reached that mark in 2024, versus 134 companies in 2023.
As usual, many organizations and companies contributed to this year’s rankings, directly and indirectly. The author would like to thank them. The author is entirely responsible for any errors – there are doubtlessly many, unfortunately.
To determine year-over-year growth rates, the revenue of each fabricator in 2023 is converted to US dollars using 2024 exchange rates (Table 1). As a result, most 2024 figures are slightly smaller than the corresponding ones from 2023. For instance, Japanese fabricators experienced pronounced changes due to the severe devaluation of the yen against the dollar. The yen stood at about 110:$1 from 2018 to 2021. If the yen remained in that range, the ranks of Japanese fabricators would be much higher. At the time of this writing, it is oscillating at around 146:1.
Table 1. Average Exchange Rate: Local Currency vs. US Dollar
Table 2 shows the 30 largest fabricators in 2024. Some companies achieved very high growth, such as Shennan, WUS, BH Flex, Victory Giant, Gold Circuit, Nitto Denko and Hongxin Electronics. Only two non-Asian fabricators are in the Top 30: TTM Technologies and AT&S. With their new plants, they will gain in the rankings, although most Asian fabricators in this list have invested heavily in new plants in Southeast Asia, which began to bear fruit gradually in 2025.
Table 2. NTI-100 2024, 1-30
Tables 3 to 7 show the remainder of the 159 fabricators with revenues of $100 million or more in 2024.
Table 3. NTI-100 2024, 31-60
Table 4. NTI-100 2024, 61-90
Table 5. NTI-100 2024, 91-120
Table 6. NTI-100 2024, 121-150
Table 7. NTI-100 2024, 151-159
Table 8 consolidates the NTI-100 fabricators’ production by region. These data are summarized to show the relative “strength” of each region, which in most cases means “country.” One aside: China treats Taiwan as one of its provinces. Whether it is an independent country or a region, for this list, Taiwan is tabulated separately.
Table 8. NTI-100 2024 List Summary by Region
Since these figures reflect the leading fabricators, the percentage share closely represents the production value created by the top fabricators in their own country and abroad.
Global PCB Output and ‘Country’ Shares
China’s PCB output was about $56.4 billion in 2024 (Table 9), of which approximately $16.7 billion was produced by Taiwan fabricators. The output in China by other foreign fabricators is estimated to be about $5 billion (major contributors include TTM Technologies, AT&S, Mektec, Meiko, CMK, Gul Technology, etc.). That leaves about $34.7 billion made in China in 2024 by domestic companies.
Table 9. World PCB Production by Region
China is “renting” places for foreign transplants. PCB output in Southeast Asia will grow by leaps and bounds over the next several years, mostly from foreign transplants.
Table 10. 2024 PCB Output by Nation
After six months of work, very intensive in June and July, the author is tired of looking at these tables. One mistake means rebuilding all the tables. It’s nerve-racking. Readers can probably understand the feeling, since the first NTI-100 article was produced in 1999, with subsequent lists every year for a quarter century.
The primary reason for investigating the world’s top PCB fabricators is to estimate global PCB production. By analyzing data and understanding the nationality of the fabricators, it was thought that a reasonable assessment of global production and production by country could be made, given the author’s (decent) knowledge of the locations of the world’s top PCB fabricators. This study of global PCB production began in the mid-1980s with the IPC TMRC, headed by Ray Pritchard, then IPC’s executive director.
As the years went by, the list of top fabricators grew, as did the production locations. As a result, it is harder every year to collect accurate data. The most valuable source of data comes from the Taiwan Printed Circuit Association (TPCA) and China Printed Circuit Association (CPCA), coupled with the author’s connections. When the World Electronic Circuits Council (WECC) data are considered, however, the author feels that CPCA reflects about 75% of China’s actual production. China is, of course, the largest national producer (59% share) in the world. In CPCA’s defense, it is nearly impossible to get data from the 1,500 fabricators operating in China, including foreign-owned companies.
Of the estimated $56.4 billion PCB production in China, domestic Chinese companies made up $34.7 billion (62%), meaning foreign-invested fabricators’ share in China is substantial (38%). In the 1990s and through the 2000s, many foreign fabricators built plants in China and employed residents. These transplants became a valuable source of PCB technologies in China. Many prominent Chinese PCB fabricators were launched using knowledge obtained from these foreign transplants, leveraging expertise not only in technology and manufacturing but also in management.
Glorious China, yes, but a dichotomy is taking place there. Shenzhen once had more than 400 PCB fabricators. Today, that number is probably less than half. Recent news indicates that more than 20 PCB bankruptcies have occurred in China in recent months, including Wuzhu Technology’s Dongguan plant, which Wuzhu Shenzhen purchased from bankrupt Taiwan fabricator Yashin and renamed Wushu Dongguan. PCB fabricators with financial muscle and technology built plants outside Shenzhen, many in Jiangxi Province. Towns where these new plants were built were inconvenient to reach from Shenzhen or Hong Kong. Ji’An, for example, where Kinwong, Red Board, Shengyi Electronics and many more have large plants, was hard to reach. The nearby town of Jingangshan had the only regional airport accessible from Shenzhen, a once-daily flight. Now, high-speed trains take passengers from Shenzhen to Ji’An in two hours. (Jingangshan is the city where Mao Zedong started the infamous “Long March.”)
China became the manufacturing hub of the world. That means, the most important supply chain was built there, and the global firms dependent on this supply chain started to worry about this one-sided dependence. This concern applied not only to end-products but also extended to a large portion of the components needed to build these products, including PCBs, which are supplied from China. The Covid pandemic stranded the Chinese supply chain – badly. Then, firms that were previously dependent on China began to pressure their suppliers to relocate elsewhere. The PCB industry is particularly keen on this strategy.
Still, relocation talks date back as far as the early 2000s. “Chindia,” meaning from China to India, was a term created by journalists who knew the strain of overreliance on China. Realizing India was too immature to absorb vast manufacturing operations from China, “Chindia” became “China+1.” The “+1” can be anywhere, India included. From the viewpoint of the PCB industry, Southeast Asia became the favorite “+1” location since India’s PCB infrastructure remains poor: essential equipment and materials must still be imported, with no local supply capability in sight.
In the past two years, more than 60 PCB fabricators, mostly from Taiwan and China, have built or are building plants in Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam, causing a bit of a problem in recruiting local workers and engineers. The quick solution is to relocate workers and engineers from their home countries, perhaps temporarily, until the plants run smoothly. The same situation occurred in China in the 1900s and 2000s.
But while that practice is being followed, the Thai government is responding to cap it. It enacted a law that prohibits these transplants from hiring more than 30% of “management” from their home countries. The definition of “management” is loose, however, and it seems this is mostly a government effort to encourage foreign investors to hire more local managers, whatever “managers” means. Thailand lacks a sufficient domestic workforce knowledgeable in PCB manufacturing and the country is going to be a battleground for Taiwanese and Chinese fabricators looking to secure experienced locals. Because of this situation, the cost of PCB production in Thailand seems to be higher than in China for the same product and quantity (for the time being, anyway).
Infrastructure is being built rapidly in Thailand. Major copper-clad laminate (CCL) fabricators from Taiwan, ITEQ and TUC, built plants near their customers. Kingboard Chemical added a new CCL plant, as did Shengyi Technology. Elite Material (EMC) chose Malaysia, in front of TTM Technologies’ Penang plant. MKS-Atotech is building a chemicals plant. Topoint built a drill bit manufacturing plant within a stone’s throw of Gold Circuit Electronics in an industrial park in Pranchinburi, home to many PCB fabricators, including CMK, Dynamic, STARTeam, Founder (iFound), with more coming. ITEQ’s CCL plant is in Rojana Industrial Park, also in Prachinburi Province, 10 minutes from Gold Circuit.
In Thailand, the only substantial domestic PCB fabricator is KCE Electronics. Provided everything goes well, Thailand will produce more than $10 billion worth of PCB yearly in five to seven years, nearly all by transplants. A similar situation exists in Vietnam.
Vietnam has been dominated by Japanese and South Korean fabricators, now joined by a few Taiwanese (Tripod and T.P.T) and Chinese (Victory Giant). Malaysia has a few local PCB fabricators, but its strength is nowhere near that of the newcomers: TTM Technologies, AT&S, GBM, Simmtech, Sunshine, etc. Singapore has three PCB fabricators: Sanmina, Lincstech (now part of GBM) and one local, Additive Circuits. Toppan Electronics is building a new IC package substrate plant in Singapore with Broadcom’s participation, investing about $350 million. The only large PCB operation in the Philippines is Ibiden Philippines. Other small fabricators in the Philippines are essentially all Japanese-owned.
What the author suggests is that Southeast Asia will produce $18 billion to $20 billion worth of PCBs, maybe by 2030-32. Chinese PCB fabricators are still investing in China. Taiwanese fabricators’ investment is concentrated in Thailand, however. As such, their growth will come from Thailand. The only growth in Japan and South Korea is coming from IC package substrate investments. On a global level, North America and Europe seem to be falling further behind, although some individual fabricators are striving, such as TTM Technologies and AT&S.
The 2030 rankings will be interesting (assuming the NTI-100 series is still published then). One thing is certain: Taiwan and China will continue to dominate PCB production, and despite continued bankruptcies, more names will appear in future NTI-100 lists.
Dr. Hayao Nakahara is president of N.T. Information and a contributing editor to PCD&F/CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. He is the world’s foremost authority on the worldwide printed circuit board market.
