At present, the circuit board industry worldwide is mainly controlled by Taiwan, China, Japan, South Korea, and a few European and American manufacturers. Although the output value of circuit boards around the world has shown steady growth in the past few years, the growth rates among these above-mentioned major countries have varied; furthermore, the direction of growth or decline within these countries is not wholly consistent each year either.
    In 2020, the output value of circuit boards (including the output value of circuit board manufacturers engaged in post-production SMT) worldwide was estimated to reach about US$69.7 billion (as shown in Figure 2); a growth rate of 9.4% compared to that of 2019. There is a rather considerable gap in terms of output value and growth rates compared to estimates from the beginning of the year, and key reasons for this gap are as follows: the period of work resumption is shorter, demands have far exceeded expectations, post-epidemic life has driven soaring demands for some products, 5G business opportunities remain unaffected by the epidemic, the iPhone 12 is selling well despite delays in launch, the downstream mindset is rather conservative, and inventory levels are enhanced.
    As for performance in Asia regions, the output value of circuit boards in Taiwan was about NT$696.3 billion in 2020. If the amount of original orders were calculated in US dollars, the output value should have reached US$23.6 billion; a significant increase of about 10.2% compared to that of 2019, and a new record high. In terms of mainland-owned PCB factories, revenues in Q1 had, in most cases, declined due to unfavorable factors such as the epidemic and work halts in 2020, while manufacturing plants gradually resumed operations in Q2 in various places. Among them, the growth of 5G communications and computers, etc. is found to have soared, helping mainland-owned PCB plants achieve higher levels of revenue against hostile trends in 2020. The overall growth rate remains the highest around the world. As for Japan, revenue from Japanese substrate factories in 2020 ceased falling given the favorable input of revenue from substrate businesses, and it is expected to grow by about 2% compared to that in 2019. Similar to the situation observed in the Japanese market, demand in the substrate market has also spread in South Korea. As a whole, Korean factories were expected to grow by about 5% in revenue in 2020, fueled by demands for substrate, and will strive to grow as they slim down product lines.