The Interconnect Technology Suppliers Association (ITSA) has reported that UK connector revenues are up 6% year-on-year, but down 6% in the first qurter of 2023. The biggest declines are seen in the communications, data processing and broadcast markets, of up to 40%.

“There are many elements that affect revenue trends not least of which appears to be phasing of revenues versus orders, in the case of Comms, Data Processing and Broadcast our members enjoyed a very strong Q4 of 2022 and this is having some of the effect in the first haff of 2023, whilst the percentage variations of between -20% for Comms, -42% for Data Processing and -32% for Broadcast quarter on quarter for 2023 may look alarming the trend versus 2022 is far less dramatic and in the case of Data Processing our members have seen a +74% growth,” said John Biggs, ITSA’s Chairman.

“The other factors to bear in mind here are that there has been a very high spend in the Broadcast market over the past 12 months to catch up with lack of spend in the previous 2 years, but this is now levelling up as the festival season is now in full swing.

“For the Communication and Data Processing markets there has also been a very high spend level over the past 2-3 years as more and more people worked from home but this has not continued and in fact whilst there continues to be a high level of working from home we have seen that a majority of customers have moved to a more hybrid form of working and therefore more time is now being spent back in the offices.

“Lastly, these markets have enjoyed a high level of value-add business over the past 2-3 years, which has tended to be very project specific and currently these type of projects are much less.

One thing of note is that the three markets in question represent around 11% of the total revenues enjoyed by ITSA members and as such do not impact significantly on their overall revenue performance.

“ITSA members have seen a general slowdown in Q2 of 2023 and they expect this to continue as we head into the summer, despite this the association is still forecasting between 4-6% growth in 2023.”

ITSA members remain optimistic, despite a tough quarter for the order book.

ITSA’s latest report reveals that orders have dropped sharply from 2022 and the book-to-bill for the quarter was just positive.

Some key markets are showing more encouraging signs: medical +12%, mil/aero +9%, mass transport +9% and test & measurement +4% over Q1.

Distribution is down 12% over Q1, but still up 7% year-on-year.

Despite an ever changing and volatile market situation, ITSA members remain resilient, projecting an optimistic 4-6% growth for the year-end.

The full report can be found here: ITSA Report