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Europe may be causing many executives to shrug their shoulders with continued uncertainty, but some distributors are making the most of the unpredictable economic spiral and ratcheting up decent financial quarters.
{complink 12816|Mouser Electronics Inc.}, for instance, recently reported strong and continuing growth with its nine European offices in Germany, the UK, Czech Republic, France, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden, despite the general weakness plaguing Europe.
“By adding more resources and staff members in Europe, we have helped drive further growth over an amazing 2010-2011,” said Mark Burr-Lonnon, Mouser vice president for the EMEA Business. “We’ve seen around 20 percent further growth in 2012 and gaining momentum each month, solidifying us as a key player in the European market. No question about it, 2012 is proving to be another great year for Mouser, especially bearing in mind the slowing of the market.”
To date, Mouser's sales gains on a country-by-country basis include: a 24 percent increase in France; a 27 percent hike in Spain; Benelux (a customs union for Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) was up 58 percent; the UK climbed 19 percent; a 23 percent increase in Italy; and Germany jumped 16 percent. According to a statement EBN received in July, the company said these 2012 figures compound 2010-2011's growth of 43 percent, and combined three-year sales for Mouser soared 450 percent.
"The web continues to be a key driver of our new business, accounting for 75 percent of all new accounts and close to 50 percent of sales, which has made a major contribution and three-year increase in the European customers of over 260 percent," said Burr-Lonnon.
{complink 12895|Premier Farnell plc} saw European sales also inch up in the recent first quarter for fiscal 2013. Although overall sales dropped five percent year-over-year, Europe had sequential growth of 2.1 percent, the company reported in June.
"Global quarterly sales per day have been maintained at a stable level since the decline in the global electronics and technology markets that impacted us in June last year," said Laurence Bain, Premier Farnell's group chief executive.
"In the first quarter, we saw sequential growth in both Europe and Asia Pacific and a reduction in the Americas as that business continues its progression from commodity to strategic MRO and EDE. Although at this stage of the cycle EDE markets remain challenging, MRO sales per day continued to progress on a year on year basis."
Others, though, like their brothers across either side of the electronics aisle -- those producing components and those selling finished devices -- have seen the opposite trend.
For example, Distributors’ and Manufacturers’ Association of Semiconductor Specialists (DMASS) -- a European non-profit organization that collates detailed semiconductor distribution market data on a quarterly basis by country and product groups such as microcontrollers, flash memories, and analog components -- said last week the regional semiconductor market remains weak.
DMASS, which consists of 35 active members and represents between 80 and 85 percent of the total European distribution market, said that although sales are coming in at a high level, second-quarter sales dropped when compared to a record 2011 quarter.
Georg Steinberger, chairman of DMASS, said in a statement: “The first half of 2012 remains weak, relatively speaking, as records of the past do not count in a competitive environment. We are still facing a very quiet market today, with uncertainties around the overall economical situation in Europe. Although the second half will be inevitably better in relative terms, 2012 won’t be a growth year either, that much is clear. 2012 will end with a small minus, provided no macro-economical problems occur.”
DMASS said: "From a regional view, the disappointment is with Western Europe and the growth fantasies are with Eastern Europe. Romania, Israel and Russia grew double-digit, the rest of Eastern Europe remained slightly positive."
It said that in Western Europe, France (-9.8 percent), UK (-10.3 percent), Benelux (-11.4 percent), and Iberia (-13.8 percent) reported a decline that was under-proportional, while Nordic (-18 percent), Germany (-21.9 percent), and Italy (-24.3 percent) dropped considerably more than average. The top five countries in sales were Germany (472 million euro; $591 million), Italy (139 million euro; $174 million), UK (124 million euro; $155 million), France (110 million euro; $137 million), and Russia (65 million euro; $81.4 million).
So, as with everything else, the story about Europe's growth potential or tumbling decline very much depends on who's telling the story.
@Jennifer,
“the story about Europe's growth potential or tumbling decline very much depends on who's telling the story.”
The truth is somewhere in the middle. But it is good to know that everything is not that bad for European distributors. Mouser Electronics Inc. growth figures are very impressive.
I believe any positive sign of Europe market will lift the spirits of many companies. Even queen Elizabeth is doing her bit by announcing 1m pound awards for the visionary engineers.
Catalog distributors, which focus on engineering and low-volume, high mix orders, can buck overall trends. As long as compnaies continue to design, catalogs will show some growth even when volume sales are down. These companies are also high-service, which doesn't hurt either
Investment in R&D and retooling are one course to take when there are problems with investment, finance, and credit. In this case catalog sales make sense. Government spending is down but maybe a market in niche luxury goods.
The web continues to be a key driver of our new business, accounting for 75 percent of all new accounts and close to 50 percent of sales
Good to hear that Europe is showing signs of recovery. Web is key business driver and companies should take all steps to take use of all the features of the web including social media.
the UK climbed 19 percent; a 23 percent increase in Italy; and Germany jumped 16 percent.
@Jennifer, what was the impact of the Olympics on the UK economy ? Which companies got the maximum benefit of this event ? Did it help increase the government expenditure and thus improve the market sentiments ?
Hmmm! That's interesting – motivating potential innovative engineers, a welcome idea. What of sustainability? ” Motivation's what gets you started, while habit keeps you going”. Though, I think concerted efforts still a panacea to recovery to get things back on the right track.
Hospice – The story is not only in the middle, it more like rubber band. Some companies have been pulled in some directions and are snapping back, other still have more pull left in them or got hit a few quarters ago and have started to turn around.
electrnx_lyf… really? hadn't heard about the queen's visionary engineering awards. I'll look it up.
Barbara – good point… forgot to mention a bit more about their operating model, which puts some of this into context.
triaipur – Certainly the Olympics must have had an economic impact overall, but I'm not sure how the games would have impacted EU distributors. There were lots infrastructure and general improvments to be done, but how much of that business was routed to catalog distributor, I don't know.
Wale – Good point on the getting start motivation vs the momentum you need to keep going. Without having read anything yet on that incentive program, perhaps the idea is that engineers are types of people who would problem-solve and keep trouble-shooting even if they weren't given an award.. giving a monetary award maybe would inspire engineers at least bring their ideas somewhat forward, instead of keeping it locked in their heads.
RFID in the cloud–what a great idea. (Clearly, I havene't been using my brain recently.) One of the things holding RFID back, I believe, is the investment in equipment. The cloud would minimize that…and a scanning app on a smartphone…solves a lot of issues. I wonder if the costs are reduced enough, electronics compnaies will start using RFID on components? Or is that still a non-starter?
@Barbara, when you consider convergence as a key product feature determination, then matching up wireless with Internet and mobile and software and all the other rapidly emerging technologies, pretty much is fueling our acceleration towards an all digital future. By that I mean, as our knowledge becomes more additive from a multi vectoring point of view, then our velocity towards a realized sci-fy like existance increases at an exponential pace. Technology is determining us as we will conform to whatever it takes to get the most out of our technologies. Ask yourself how much different are we from 10 years ago? How much of that is due to technology, and what technologies we have become completely dependent upon? The more dependent we become on anything, the less freedom we have and the fewer are the choices we can make.
Looks quite complex and inconvenient solution. Perhaps we need to find simpler solution.
Well, not to say I am absolutely right, but the feeling, in general, is RFID deployment has faced some issues and reduction with the advent of 2D-code and features inside smartphones which have replaced, sometimes, RFID reader terminals. Of course, between techs, there is still a gap.
I cannot really understand how an encrypted RFID tag will prevent a person from reading the information written on a piece of paper.
I presume when the information on a tag is secured, its content cannot be read back and copied onto another tag. That is the only way RFID tags can be used as a secure medium for authentication.
Going back to the hardcopy protection, let's think that each page of a 200 page document was protected by the “RFID paper”. In that case, in order to ensure the authenticity of each page, the reader would have to read the tag on each page to verify the author, which to me sounds like a big overhead. There is also the cost associated with the RFID paper and the programming of the secure tags when the document is produced. I am not sure if this method will be practical enough to be used by everyone.
I was about to ask the same thing. Are we talking about physical documents or eDocs? Will it be smart ink?
Douglas, RFID has promised more than it has delivered and I am not sure this idea has legs. I am waiting for the evolution you speak off.
In my opinion RFID tagging is good for all things physical -small or large. Intel has even embedded RFID tags in their new processors as a check against counterfeiting.
But for electronic documents something like PKI is an appropriate security . RFID will create an unnecessary overhead for such documents as email attachments.
“I cannot really understand how an encrypted RFID tag will prevent a person from reading the information written on a piece of paper.”
@Cryptoman: I don't think the RFID tags are designed to prevent someone from reading the documents. The idea is to ensure that the original document cannot be forged and a fake copy cannot be made from it. As far as the cost is involved, yes I agree that there will be a significant cost as every page will need to have it's own tag.
@Mr Roques: The RFID tags will be used to secure physical copies of the document. As Doughlas said, the tags will be embedded within two sheets of paper and will be read through an RFID reader.
RFID tagging for document security. That would be just great. Many times our letter are sent to wrong addresses and few people wont mind opening the letters and reading it. I guess RFID tagging would make it safer.
Yes true and with RFID you can be assured that what you sent will be delivered to the right person on good condition.
@TaimoorZ, Exactly right! RFID does not stop anyone from reading a secure document. It only authenticates the sender and when the RFID chip has onboard memory, can track the stations and that the document passed through and when. This is called “Rules based management”. It is perfect for the supply chain where in-transit checks are required.
I recently came across an interesting application of the RFID technology which is about tracking money. Researchers at the Functional Nanomaterials and Devices Laboratory at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology are trying to implement RFID on banknotes.
In the link I provided above, you will find an interesting interview on this fascinating and very useful application of RFID.
Crypto,
Philosphically I am opposed to this.People should have the freedom to use Competing currencies whichever suits themselves.
This is not a good move if you believe in Freedom and Liberty[How you anonymize/ensure that the Government does not abuse the tracking features on the Note for their own nefarious needs???]
But Technically,I was like WoW!The Engineering Skills involved are just mind-boggling here.
Awesome ,Awesome stuff!
Regards
Ashish.
Hi tech4people,
I do see your concerns and I agree with them. Whilst this technology can help detect fraud and money laundering, it also provides a means to track the amount of cash people have in their pockets, which I do find way intrusive and a breach of privacy.
As the article has mentioned, it provides a fantastic tool for the government to check whether people pay their income tax properly. I am sure this possibility alone will cause huge objections to this technology.
This particular application has many controversial issues associated with it and whilst it may easily be put into practice in Saudi Arabia, I cannot say the same for the Western world.
Technologically, I was equally impressed as you though.
Crypto,
This is one such rule,the other is the increased move to a Cash less Society(like in Sweden,etc);both are very-very dangerous for individual freedoms.
For examples of how bad things can and will get(if this move gains traction);Watch this
http://www.businessinsider.com/on-switzerland-and-the-mafia-2012-8
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/08/06/children-swiss-asset-manager-detained-for-six-hours-for-questioning-by-us-officials/
Most Western Governments are bankrupt today.So Harassment of Citizens(to pay their so-called fair share in Taxes) is gonna increase;especially if you are not politically connected.
Compare and contrast this behavior to that meted out to Known Cheats like Timothy Geithner and Jon Corzine & you will know what I mean.
Regards
Ashish.
Crypto,
Saudi Arabia does not have Income Taxes and its not like the Saudi Riyal is widely used outside of Saudi Arabia(so market for Currency forgery is less);so I don't see why there should resistance to utililzation of this Technology there.
Regards
Ashish.
@tech4people
Thank you for sharing these links. This is a perfect example of how the government can use its power to play unfairly and without limits. It is very scary indeed. Such acts do gradually deteriorate the trust of people in the government which is irreversible and therefore it is a very risky practice though.
When seamless technology and access (such as the one offered by RFID) is brought into the above picture, only god knows how 'creatively' the governments can make use of the information they have access to.
I am just thinking of a scenario where the RFID powered banknotes changing hands from a criminal to an innocent citizen (called Bob) and the horrific situation this 'unmeasurable and undetectable' scenario could lead to. Poor Bob could be questioned for days on end to prove that he got the cash from somebody else!
Crypto,
My points precisely!
Can you imagine a situation where a Criminal feels pity on a Beggar by the roadside and gives him one of these rigged notes?
The poor Beggar won't know what hit him as the Authorities hound him entirely over that rigged Note!!!
Privacy and Personal Freedom will become extinct in such a sceanario.
At that stage,it will be time to abandon that country.
Regards
Ashish.
“It only authenticates the sender and when the RFID chip has onboard memory, can track the stations and that the document passed through and when”
@Doughlas: I wasn't aware of this feature that the chip can also store the reader's information once it's read. Seems like a really useful technique to ensure that the document has not fallen in the wrong hands and that it's still confidential.