Front End | Electronic Components Supply Network
European electronic components market – Q1 ’26 overview
The term ‘Billings’ is used in electronic components markets to describe the sales that have been shipped to customers and subsequently invoiced. ‘Billings’ in Europe grew by 20 per cent in Q1’26 when compared to the previous quarter, indicating a return to much stronger growth than members of the International Distributors of Electronics Association (IDEA) forecasted. ‘Bookings’ (new customer orders entered) grew by 34 per cent in the same three-months, well beyond the most optimistic expectation, but Adam Fletcher, chairman of the UK’s Electronic Components Supply Network (ecsn) and IDEA cautions that the wider electronic components supply network should not view
these elevated results as good news: “Q4’25 saw the semiconductor sector regain its usual position as a leading indicator of activity in the global electronic components market, but the 85 per cent ‘Bookings’ growth we saw in Q1’26 compared to the same quarter in 2025 was just crazy!” Fletcher said. In that three months, passive components ‘Bookings’ increased by 26 per cent and E-Mech by 17.5 per cent, and that was still a very strong result: “The semiconductor sales figures are simply not sustainable and are simply due to widespread panic buying and inventory hoarding, practises that can only further restrict component availability and extend lead-times”, continued Fletcher. “Many system integration companies (customers) are already facing short-term semiconductor shortages, and this contagion may well soon spread to some passive products, particularly Multi-Layer Ceramic Capacitors (MLCC). I fear that real business growth activities in our industry will be suppressed by the considerable effort and money that will be unnecessarily squandered in expediting delivery of unneeded components.”
T
he IDEA European Statistical Analysis graphic “1st Quarter 2026 Total Components – Booking, Billing & Book to Bill Ratio”, (best read from left to right) provides a useful snapshot of the market position in Q1‘26. The blue bars in the graphic illustrate European ‘Billings’ (revenue from sales shipped and invoiced). Q1’25 saw a brief return to growth that faded again in the second quarter, remained essentially ‘flat’ in Q3 and Q4 but grew by 20 per cent in Q1’26.
The brown bars show European ‘Bookings’ (net new sales entered), which continued a generally downward trajectory for six consecutive quarters. Low growth briefly returned in Q4’24 and Q1’25 before declining once again in the following quarter. However, growth leapt up by 23 per cent in Q4’25 and again by a further 15 points in the following quarter.
Book to Bill (B2B) ratio The Book to Bill (B2B) ratio continued to contract in the early months of 2005 before very gradually improving. It finally regained unity (1:1) in Q3’25 but then increased dramatically to 1.22:1 in Q4’25 and reached 1.37:1 in Q1’26. The general shape of the B2B curve over the last two years is indicative of a steadily improving business trend in Europe
12 June 2026
(albeit on declining Billings). A steady B2B around 1.05:1 had been forecast and would have been preferable because it would indicate the return of manageable, real growth in our market.
Semiconductor booking activity in Europe The IDEA graphic “1st Quarter 2026 Semiconductor – Bookings, Billings and Book-to-Bill Ratio (B2B) Trend” (again best read from left to right) clearly reflects a generally weak demand for semiconductor products. Semiconductor ‘Billings’ (blue
Components in Electronics
bars) reported by participants in European electronic components markets from Q2’24 until Q4’25 show essentially ‘flat’ (zero) growth. Strong ‘Bookings’ (brown bars) in Q4‘25 drove ‘Billings’ higher in Q1’26 but then semiconductor ‘Bookings’ simply spiralled out of control in Q1’26. A semiconductor B2B ratio of 1.52:1 across Europe is wholly unsustainable and will result in pain for all parties in the electronic components supply network.
Market recovery
There are always leading and lagging indicators in any market recovery and
surprisingly, demand for passive components was the leading indicator in the first three quarters of 2025, whilst demand for semiconductors (normally leading the charge) trailed in second place. The situation changed dramatically in Q4’25 as the lead-time for specific “merchant market, commodity memory products” particularly for the DRAM and FLASH products in most demand, rapidly extended from eighteen to forty plus weeks. So, whilst semiconductor ‘Bookings’ have increased dramatically in Q4’25 and Q1’26 (and now looking likely in Q2’26 too), it will be a long time, if ever, before ‘Billings’ catch up. There are many scenarios that could play out in the rest of the year but the two most likely are: 1 Manufacturers of non-Hyperscale computing technology will be able to source the memory components they require but supply will be limited and controlled (rationed?) by their key suppliers. Expect the pricing of these components to be higher than in a normal market for the next eighteen months or so, until the new manufacturing capacity already well underway comes online and the market is flooded with lower priced products. 2 The AI / Hyperscale Computing market, which has been growing exponentially over the last two years, will slow and with it, much of the current demand for High Bandwidth
www.cieonline.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48
