Spotlight On
A spotlight on Digi-Key
CIE speaks to Ian Wallace, Digi-Key
What trends have you seen on the rise in the European electronics market?
T
here are lot of exciting trends right now. I’ll start with general trends I’ve seen in my travels, particularly
in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) market. First, there’s an ongoing trend of speed to market and a short design cycle, which reflects engineers’ increasing need for receiving their product and accessing support quickly. Digi-Key lends well to that with our website, the breadth of inventory and our two-day shipping to most parts of Europe. One trend that’s becoming more and
more noticeable is the environmental aspect of our business. Many of our customers definitely see a need for products with lower power consumption and that last longer.
Automation in manufacturing is another trend I’m seeing more, whether EMS (Electronic Manufacturing Service) or OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer.) For the purchasing people as well – using APIs to automate getting pricing and availability quickly is becoming more and more popular. Finally, in the area of product design, I’m noticing some OEMs and ODMs outsourcing the product design to Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS). On the vertical market side, I’m still seeing a lot of activity in IoT. This is especially true in regard to wearables,
30 September 2019
smart homes, asset tracking for logistics, smart metering, and environmental aspects like monitoring weather and pollution. Additionally, while automotive has had a slight downturn, I expect there to be an upturn soon with the growth of electric vehicles and the need for more charging points.
Has Digi-Key's global growth been reflected in Europe, and what is your view on the shape of the European electronics market currently?
Digi-Key has had a very successful last two years in the EMEA market. Last year alone, we grew to $690 million US dollars, which was a growth of 46 per cent from 2017. There has been a slight downturn in the overall European market in 2019, and I think this is primarily due to somewhat of an inventory correction. We obviously had a lot of challenges last year with certain products, which went on allocation or had long lead times and then when people could get the product they got as much as they could. I believe some customers still have a lot of inventory and it will take some time to work through that. Some of our competitors have
responded to this downturn by reducing their operating expenses and cutting back inventory, but Digi-Key continues to invest aggressively in inventory, digital transformation, and expansion. No matter the stage of the sales cycle that our industry faces, Digi-Key is dedicated
Components in Electronics
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 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
