2012 is a bumper year for FPCB manufacturers, since FPCB is used in almost all popular electronic products, especially tablet PC and smart phone which have strongly promoted the FPCB market. The global FPCB market scale reached USD 10,680 million in 2012, an increase of 15.2% compared with 2011. FPCB achieved the strongest growth among all electronic parts and components in 2012, and will maintain the strong growth momentum in 2013. The global FPCB market scale is expected to reach USD 11,628 million in 2013, up 8.9% compared with 2012. 

Although the market conditions are good, not all manufacturers can seize the opportunities. Fujikura suffered the most serious business decline in 2012. Its FPCB business was heavily hit by the flood in Thailand at the end of 2011, hasn’t recovered so far, and the revenue declined significantly to only half of that in 2011. In 2013, Fujikura’s FPCB business will recover slowly, but will be unlikely to regain orders in a short period of time, so Fujikura will continue to have a tough time in 2013. 

Advancing triumphantly, industry leader NOK occupied the market vacancy left by Fujikura, and for the first time its revenue exceeded USD 3 billion in 2012, far beyond the second place. 

ZDT of Hon Hai achieved substantial growth. With Apple as its major customer, it grabbed more Apple orders from M-Flex in 2012, leading to slight decline in the revenue of M-Flex. M-Flex is headquartered in Singapore, listed in the United States, and has production bases in China. 

Benefiting from the popularity of Samsung smart phones, South Korean FPCB manufacturers have delivered a good performance. Interflex is not only a major supplier of Samsung, but a supplier of Apple. Taking into account the competition with Samsung, Interflex’ orders from Apple declined, but the orders from Samsung are enough for Interflex to achieve good results. 

Flexcom gets 70% of its revenue from Samsung, and its revenue soared by 67.7% in 2012. SI Flex was dragged down by its big customer LG. 

Among Taiwanese manufacturers, Flexium is a supplier of Apple, and Career mainly supplies the mainland Chinese market. 

Although there have been dozens of FPCB manufacturers in Mainland China, their business scale is very small, the annual revenue is mostly under RMB 200 million, and it’s difficult for them to obtain stable orders. The overall market is very good, but mainland Chinese manufacturers are unable to fully enjoy the benefits of market expansion and achieve significant revenue growth. 

Another phenomenon in 2012 is that some manufacturers that take FPCB business as a non-core business began to withdraw from the business. For example, SUMITOMO BAKELITE Co., Ltd.announced its withdrawal from the FPCB business in Sep.2012; on October 1, 2012, Sony Chemical & Information Device Corporation sold its chemicals business to a Japanese government agency, and renamed Dexerials, with 60% and 40% of the shares held by Development Bank of Japan and Unison Capital respectively. The main development direction of Dexerials will be adhesive materials and optical materials. In addition, FPCB is also not the core business of NITTO DENKO, and may be sold too.