Boom after the gloom for the UK
30 November 2010
I recently had the opportunity to catch up with Mark Larson, Digikey’s CEO, who believes that the UK is the perfect territory to match his company – not least because it is booming!
Now, as the year has worn on, there seems to be less reluctance to confess, albeit with a British reserve bordering on embarrassment, that for most people in the UK electronics industry this year has not been all that bad. In fact it has been pretty good. There will always be exceptions (like the automotive sector, for example) so I apologise to those affected if I sound glib. But there is no doubt that for the majority the miseries of 2009 are a distant memory.
To say that the UK market is actively booming might seem a step too far, but that is how Digikey’s Mark Larson sees us. “It certainly has been an interesting two years. In 2009 sales into the UK was about the same as they were in 2008,” he said. “They didn't really take a hit - we just about held our own. But in 2010 our sales in the UK have increased dramatically, I think to about double what they were in 2009. So I know the market this year has been universally good and we've been able to outperform the market significantly.”
Larson believes the bounce back from the recession may mean that 2010 growth figures of up to 35% may be accurate, although slightly misleading due to the retraction in 2009. Across the two years an average growth of around 12% is probably more realistic. However, particularly as his company is not one that chases the high volume market, he sees the UK as a very promising territory. “The UK has been very robust for us. We have two aspects to our business. We serve engineers in prototyping and design, and when they do new product introduction in short runs. But we also have part of our business that is serving production for short and medium-size production runs, with high-mix product, and the UK is a very good market for that. What we have found is that the market in the UK is a very good fit for our strengths.”
I do believe that this sends out a positive message for the UK electronics industry. The UK has not been the most fashionable geography in recent years and this has been to the detriment, I believe, of the suppliers who insist on pursuing their fortunes in Asia alone. For companies such as Digikey to identify the UK as the centre of excellence in both design and manufacturing that it undoubtedly is, is yet another step towards restoring a proper perspective on the importance of the UK to the global electronics industry.
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