ECIA Releases Electronic Component Sales Trend (ECST) December and Q4 2021 Survey Results

Actual Electronic Component Sales Sentiment Wallops December Expectations / Strengthening January Outlook

ATLANTA – The results of the December 2021 ECST survey delivered a pleasant surprise as the measurement of actual sales sentiment for December outperformed the sales outlook for December from the prior survey by a wide margin. “The overall component sales sentiment outlook for December published in the November report was 95.2, an indication of expectation of a month-to-month sales decline,” explained ECIA’s Chief Analyst Dale Ford, author of the report. “The actual sentiment measured for December in the latest survey is 114.4, a difference of 19.2 points and an indication of sales growth.  This was also an improvement over the November actual sales sentiment of 111.0. Even more encouraging is the jump in the index in expectations looking forward to January 2022. The sentiment forecast for January jumped to 125.8, the highest level since August 2021. The overall end-market sentiment index mirrors the product index closely,” he concluded.

Semiconductors lead the upward swing in sentiment at 130.0, a dramatic difference from the outlook of 100.0 for December. Passive components and Electro-Mechanical/Connector components also far outperformed expectations with actual sentiment compared to forecast sentiment coming in 15.3 and 12.2 points higher respectively. Looking toward January from December all product index measures are forecasting a robust month-to-month sales growth between 119.6 for Passive Components up to 135.5 for Semiconductors.

Among the various component sub-categories, Discrete components, Analog ICs and MCU/MPUs show the greatest optimism looking toward January. However, even the lowest sales outlook index is still well
above the threshold of 100 as Inductors come in at 111.4. In contrast to the concern that the index would fall below 100 in December, the overall actual component sales sentiment index has now register
above 100 for 17 straight months dating back to August 2020. Comparing between the three groups surveyed, there is a major reversal in expectations between Manufacturer Representatives and the
other two groups. In their outlook for December Manufacturer Representatives were significantly higher than the others in their expectations. This has reversed in the January outlook as Manufacturers
and Distributors have much higher expectations compared to Manufacturer Representatives. However, the overall sentiment outlook for January for all three groups is well above 100.

SOURCE