Some Interesting Comments on ECM's From Weekly Analysis/CMP
techweb.cmp.com
The Excerpts:
Flextronics hits big time
CEO Michael Marks thinks acquisitions are a bad way to grow a business, but it hasn't hurt Flextronics, a contract electronics manufacturer that made seven acquisitions in the past three years, Ismini Scouras writes in EBN.
The CEM will do nearly $1B in sales this year. If it hadn't gone on its acquisition binge, Flextronics could not have become a major player in the industry, he says. The firm has made only 2-1/2 mistakes in its big acquisition drive, Marks says. It paid too much for nChip, it bought a plant in Wales ("the wrong location"), and made a "languid start in building a global sales force," he says. But that hasn't stopped Flextronics from growing 100% annually since '91.
And:
Europeans discover CEM
European OEMs were slow to embrace contract manufacturing, but when they did all hell broke loose. North American contract electronics manufacturers (CEMs) are taking advantage of this momentum and are furiously adding new plants, Darrell Dunn writes in EBN.
"It's growing like crazy," declares James Savage, BT Alex Brown analyst. Western Europe shortly will jump to the 2nd-largest CEM region in the world, passing Japan and trailing only North America, says Technology Forecasters. Europe's CEM sales will grow from $10.5 billion in '96 to nearly $30 billion by '01. Central and Eastern Europe also seems ready to jump on the CEM bandwagon. The bulk of CEM work in Europe originally was done for North American OEMs, but now large local firms like Ericsson, Nokia, and Siemens are becoming big players. |
