FBDi: Strong Sales, Lower Orders

German components distribution made a huge push in the first quarter of 2023, with sales by distributors reporting to the FBDi reaching an impressive €1.51 billion in the January to March period, up 23.2% on the same quarter last year. As expected, new orders declined significantly to €1.1 billion, corresponding to a book-to-bill ratio of 0.73.

The differences between the product areas were significant. While semiconductors recorded the lion's share of the growth (+32.4% to 1.03 billion euros), passive components increased by "only" 7.5% to 200 million euros and electromechanics by "only" 4.3% to 182 million euros. With growth of almost 20% to around 53 million euros, power supplies also showed a very positive trend. There was little change in the overall product split except for semiconductors, which accounted for almost 68% of total sales (passives 13%, electromechanics 12%, power supplies 3.5%, and others 3.5%).

FBDi Chairman of the board Georg Steinberger: "The increase in sales was quite surprising, but not the normalization in bookings, which we have been seeing for several quarters and which should also have an impact on sales in the coming quarters. The overheating of the last two years has thus largely dissipated, although not all availability problems have been solved."

The outlook for 2023 is viewed quite differently within the FBDi, says Steinberger: "The last few years have been characterized by bottlenecks, price increases, advanced orders and many different, sector-specific forecasts, mixed with geopolitical influences that are unparalleled in their severity. We believe that for the time being, many customers will be consolidating their inventories and that this will shape the further development of orders. However, production is running at full speed at many companies. The challenges will rather be the lack of skilled workers as well as production capacities."