Front End | Electronic Components Supply Network


European electronic components market update


In the last few years growth in the ‘traditional’ sectors – industrial, automotive, medical, aerospace & military – of the European electronic components market has been eclipsed by non-European demand for components to support the exponential rise of Hyperscale Computing (HC) applications. The demand and supply balance has been totally disrupted for UK and European customers. In this article, Adam Fletcher, chairman of both the UK’s Electronic Components Supply Network (ecsn) and the International Distributors of Electronic Association (IDEA), shares the latest European electronic components market performance data with CIE readers and provides some insight into what might be in store for them over the next twelve months


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anufacturer Authorised Distributors serve over 98 per cent of the global customer base for electronic


components, but few of them currently serve customers in the Hyperscale Computing (HC) sector. Customers for the Graphics Processing Units (GPU) and High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) needed for AI applications are generally directly supported by the manufacturers of the devices, NVIDIA, SK Hynix, Micron and Samsung. European customers operating in the ‘traditional’ product sectors for semiconductor and passive components are currently being impacted by restricted availability, extended lead-times and escalating pricing, primarily due to the huge unforeseen demand from Hyperscale Computing which is simply “hoovering up” all the available manufacturing capacity. Significant new HBM manufacturing capacity is due to start becoming available by the end of this year. Industry pundits expect – if not a collapse – a very significant fall in the pricing of these devices during the first half of 2027, which may open up the market somewhat. The current situation has not been helped by the recent changes in the USA’s international trade policies and the armed conflict in the Middle East so any improvement in the general availability of electronic components will take at least 12-to-18 months to occur. In the meantime, some authorised distributors are supplying interconnect devices into the Hyperscale Computing sector but it’s a relatively insignificant part of the overall revenue.


10 October 2026


“double ordering”, a cynical practice which totally distorts the market and creates a much bigger problem for the entire industry to cope with.


European semiconductors – booking, billing and book-to-bill ratio


European components - booking, billing and book-to-bill ratio The Graphic T1 provided by the International Distributors of Electronic Components Association (IDEA) is an amortised snapshot of the performance of the association’s members over the past three years. The orange bars in the graphic show how “Bookings” (sales entered but not shipped) started to grow in Q1’25 as customers in central Europe began to ramp up their order cover as a defence against extending manufacturer lead-times. The blue bars show that “Billings” (shipments invoiced to customers) failed to follow the same trajectory and remained essentially “flat” throughout the year before increasing modestly in 1H ’26. By Q4’25 customers in other European countries had also concluded that extending manufacturer lead-times were indeed a reality and they started to add significant new order


Components in Electronics


cover primarily for semiconductors, but not always in a controlled manner. Authorised distributors have seen a significant increase in


Graphic S1 shows what has been happening in the European semiconductor sector over the past three years. The Book to Bill (B2B) ratio, a very good indication of future demand, remained massively below unity for nine consecutive quarters (27 months!) while customers got on with consuming (or scrapping) the excess inventory they purchased during the COVID pandemic. Unsurprisingly, “Billings” (sales revenues) also declined in the same period. Growth started to return in Q4’24 and continued to grow slowly throughout 2025 before


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