The Indian PCB Industry Challenges and Opportunities

How will the Indian PCB industry grow? What will drive its growth and what will hinder it? While trying to figure out answers to these questions, we got some insights from key figures in the Electronic Industries Association of India (ELCINA) and leading veterans in the Indian PCB industry. Electronics Bazaar presents their views, along with the opinions of others in the Indian PCB industry.

- Sudeshna Das

Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are deployed in almost all electronic products, ranging from consumer gadgets such as PCs, tablets, smartphones and gaming consoles to industrial and even high tech products in the strategic and medical electronics domains.

Considering the importance of the PCB industry in the electronics manufacturing ecosystem, the April 2016 issue of Electronics Bazaar had published an article titled, ‘How will the Indian PCB industry grow?’, covering the views of various stakeholders from within the industry.

This month, given the evolution of the electronics industry’s ecosystem over the last one year with respect to the implementation of government policies, the investment climate, government duties and consumer demand, we decided to take a fresh look at the Indian PCB industry to understand how the industry has been shaping up. In this edition, however, rather than merely presenting perspectives shared by industry thought leaders, we also thought of sharing industry trends through a mini survey of a sample group of seven senior industry members.

Market at a glance

The Indian electronics market is one of the fastest growing in the world and is anticipated to reach US$ 400 billion in 2022, with domestic manufacturing climbing to over US$ 100 billion. This will create immense scope for the PCB market.

According to an ELCINA study, domestic market demand for PCBs will grow at a CAGR of 20.56 per cent over the period 2015-2020, and will reach over US$ 6 billion by 2020 from the current level of US$ 2.38 billion (Figure 1).