Building Unified Intelligence For The Electronics Supply Chain: Christoph Solka, Global Electronics Association

Global EMS demand is back in growth mode, yet parts of Europe are still shrinking and the gap is getting harder to ignore. I sat down with Christoph Solka, Director Industry Intelligence at the Global Electronics Association to talk through what the latest data is really signaling and why “Europe vs the world” is too simple to be useful when the market is splitting by region, sector, and exposure to AI infrastructure.

We also get into the behind-the-scenes story of building a unified electronics industry intelligence platform. With European EMS data, European PCB reporting, global rankings, and ongoing market analysis coming together at the Global Electronics Association, the big question becomes: how do you scale the system without breaking the trust that took decades to earn? Christoph explains why the first priority is strengthening the IT foundation, reducing error risk, and creating a platform that can handle larger-scale data collection while keeping the methodology steady and familiar for subscribers.

Then we turn back to the numbers: why automotive weakness and local economic conditions weigh on Western Europe, why certain Eastern European players benefit more from AI-linked demand, and how defense spending can reshape outcomes in places like the Nordics. We also discuss a striking indicator of resilience: many companies improve margins even as revenue falls, and what that mix of cost control, headcount pressure, and agility says about the EMS industry right now.

If you care about EMS market intelligence, PCB industry trends, and practical signals you can use for planning and strategy, this is a must-listen. Subscribe, share, and leave a review, then tell us: what single metric best predicts a turnaround where you operate?

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Transcript

Why These Programs Moved Together

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 0:08

Hello, I'm Philip Snowsen from Money House Deals. Welcome. I am joined today by Christoph Solka. Christoph is take is taking care of um the Global Insights, and it's been a very busy few weeks, Christoph. You've been uh flat out with uh announcements relating to that, the informer European program and now the NVI Global EMS program, both coming into the Global Electronics Association in rapid succession. Um, was this a deliberate platform building strategy strategy or was it opportunist? How did how did the vision emerge? Um, and what's the vision going forward?

Christoph Solka, Director Industry Intelligence at the Global Electronics Association 0:47

Oh, very good question. I wouldn't frame it like as one or the other. For me, this it seems like there was a certain vision, but of course, there has to be some opportunity as well for us to take over those programs. So strategy alone is useless if there is no opportunity. Um, it also helped that there was like a clear desire to secure the long-term future of those programs. And however, you could also certainly build on something greenfield basis on a greenfield basis, but I believe it is, of course, more advantageous to build on something that is already well established in the market. So that's very fortunate.

What Integration Really Means

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 1:22

And I think what's exciting about having something that's established in the market is you, as well as having the snapshot that you produce a report around, you also have the the years of uh of data from the former years. So those those trends are much more available to you and they come through. You're now responsibly for what is arguably the most comprehensive suite of EMS market intelligence ever assembled under one roof. Exciting. You have the European EMS industry, the European PCB industry, and now the global rankings and MMI. What does a fully integrated version of that platform look like? And how long, how long does it take to get to the point where it is fully integrated?

Christoph Solka, Director Industry Intelligence at the Global Electronics Association 2:02

Good point, and touching many aspects. So, what you're opening up here in your question, this is actually several dimensions. So, one is the EMS and the PCB view. In other words, we see like the value chain in this in the electronics industry. Another aspect that you bring up is the regional aspect. So we speak about European view versus a global view alongside with the NVR. And in addition, we are also talking about uh the reports being based on systematic data collection. And the MMI, however, is a newsletter. So I think it becomes quickly clear that along all those dimensions, the major advantage is not to looking at things isolated. Um, but it's that's not on the isolated snapshots snapshots, but we have to look at the bigger picture with all of that, and that's the big advantage that is going to be generated that we have like a bigger picture view and we can connect the dots on the different things. And uh we will move towards such an integrated setup gradually with care. It is uh important for us that the subscribers experience continuity in terms of quality of the information, but of course, we will uh increasingly try to generate additionally value additional value out of this broader view that we now do have. And it's I would say it's still too early to say what it will look like in concrete terms. How there is no no fixed timeline, rather, we will work continuously in that direction and steadily expand

Protecting Trust While Updating Methods

Christoph Solka, Director Industry Intelligence at the Global Electronics Association 3:36

the scope.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 3:36

Yeah, I think you need to respond, you know, when you do read-throughs with the market, I think you get feedback, you can you can respond to what their their demands are. What is also interesting is the reputations of Randall Sherman and Dieta Weiss are substantial in the market. They've built something very rare, databases of information for the industry that is genuinely trusted and has been trusted over decades as the person carrying that forward. There's a real responsibility there for defending that that trust that those people have built. How do you do that whilst also evolving the methodology, perhaps to be something that is more real-time, more relevant to um the current demands in the industry?

Christoph Solka, Director Industry Intelligence at the Global Electronics Association 4:21

Yeah, yeah, this is this is very, very important what you bring up. So I already touched it a little bit. The key is here that we will be careful in a careful measured approach, and we definitely would like to continue in the spirit of Randall Sherman and Dieter Weiss, and we will want to preserve the trust first and foremost, and that means most foremost to preserve the quality of those programs. And in Dieter Weiss's case, we are fortunate to have him with us still. So he will be still actively involved and we work closely together. With Randall, Randall Sherman's program. We are in the fortunate position that um his long-standing team members uh are available and continuing the work. So we have good foundations, I would say, for maintaining that trust. And yeah, in terms of methodology, I would say you have to distinguish two levels. So one is the IT that runs it in the background. We will do, and I believe we have to do actually quite a lot there, because none of the programs that we have taken over is or were designed in the past for a larger scale. So, however, the users will barely notice those changes here. Um but for is for us, it's extremely important that also we create more efficiency and we keep the workload manable manageable and we also eliminate um the sources of errors that are possible. And the other aspect is um the methodology in terms of content. Well, there might be some steps of harmonization that we are going to do between the different programs, but we will approach this very carefully. So a stable IT platform in the background is the first priority, and towards methodology, when it comes to the content, we will do a very, very slow evolution and be very careful.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 6:09

Yeah, I really like the way you've um framed that, Christoph, the idea of uh a much stronger infrastructure behind it and an infrastructure that can scale in the future and can maybe reflect changing demands, but supported by methodologies that tried and tried and tested that are now going to be harmonized and synchronized. So the data that comes out on, for example, a European company that might be top 10 and might be top 50 in the uh in the global aspect, that data looks identical. And I think that's that's hugely valuable to the market and does give them that continuity. Um thank you for that. I want

Global Growth Versus Europe’s Slump

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 6:49

to switch gear a little bit now and talk a bit about what we've seen in the report. When we look at the global report, we saw a return to um growth, but the European data tells a tougher story. Uh, a 2.9% decline, 11 insolvences in the French market, 11,000 jobs potentially lost. How do we reconcile those two pictures? Is Europe just lagging behind in terms of the global recovery, or is there something more structural happening? I mean, when I look at the global report, we see the Taiwanese companies doing exceptionally well again and again, and they seem to be gaining the most from AI infrastructure, for example.

Christoph Solka, Director Industry Intelligence at the Global Electronics Association 7:30

First of all, the 3.2% they refer to 2024 when we saw the increase in the market globally. In 2025, the increase was even way bigger. So the contrast versus global versus Europe is even larger, is even bigger. And where do those differences come from? So in in Europe we have sector-specific weakness, for example, of course, in the automotive industry, and also the global uh the local economy is not doing very well. And um certain trends, as you have mentioned, like AI, they do not arrive in full extent uh here with us. So I cannot confirm that we are dealing with a structural issue here. And if you look at Eastern and Western Europe, actually, also here you can see the picture. In Western Europe, we have mainly the classic segments that we have. However, in Eastern Europe, there is some AI, some very big companies are involved in the AI sector, which uh is creating this this uh picture in Europe where you have growth on the one hand in Eastern Europe and and this decline or or or or flatness in Western Europe. So this is actually where we also see this different this different picture that AI is causing. And um I I would say that the broad uh spectrum of European EMS companies is not really able to participate uh from this AI-driven growth. So there is a clear split in the market, and you also can see it in the global economy. So um also when you look at the US, for example, you see like parts of the industry are booming while other parts are are not profiting from this boom, so you can definitely split between AI-driven and non-AI where you see like the market is moving in different directions.

Europe’s Split By Region And Sector

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 9:17

I think it's fascinating, and I but I think the other thing I see when I look at Europe, and I I feel like Europe had a pretty decent Q1 with a lot of companies I spoke to, particularly those in Scandinavia, but particularly those that have a strong activity in the defense sector. So much as perhaps AI isn't serving them the boom that they hoped. There's a complete tipping point in the um in the defense market, and we've seen some really substantial growth in that sector, and we've seen some uh quite aggressive acquisitions in that sector to build muscle for uh the defense industry. Do you think there's you know there's a balance there where those that are in maybe automotive, maybe AI have not had that benefit of any kind of turnaround, but those heavily involved in defense seem to be doing much, much better.

Christoph Solka, Director Industry Intelligence at the Global Electronics Association 10:05

There is a lot of regional difference in Europe. So some regions are doing worse than other regions. So if you look at the DAC regions, Swiss is pretty flat, but Austria and Germany saw a big decline. Other regions in in Europe, as you said, like the Nordic countries, they did well in contrast. So this is driven by the by the uh local economies, by the local segments, which are very strong, and that is creating the different pictures. So Nordics profiting from defense, uh, Central Europe, France, weak, caused by the local industries, the local segments, Eastern Europe, some parts recovering, some parts even recovering very strong. And we also have like in the global comparison, also, as I said earlier, some parts uh participating in II growth, some regions, some regions not. So this is the mixture overall. The the market was declining, but not everybody is the same. It depends where you are in, which region, what is driving you. So it's uh not a homogeneous but a heterogeneous picture that we do have in Europe.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 11:06

Yeah, and Europe isn't one country after all. It isn't even one. Uh sometimes it feels like it isn't just one region. Southern Europe and Northern Europe feel very different feel very different sometimes. Um, specifically on the European results, because they're the freshest and they're the newest results. Were there anything was there anything in there that genuinely surprised you when the data came in? Anything in the numbers that you weren't

Margins Up In A Down Market

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 11:29

expecting?

Christoph Solka, Director Industry Intelligence at the Global Electronics Association 11:30

What was surprising, or maybe not really surprising, but we have hoped it would be different. For a second year in a row, we have seen our decline. We have would have hoped to see a turnaround. So we were not surprised, but our hopes were disappointed. And like I said, there are different um regional performances. Some regions were very bad, some regions did did better in terms of Europe. And what is also unfortunately not really surprising, but what we saw is a further decline in the headcount and the personnel numbers. So also there was a strong decline in Western Europe now, following in Eastern Europe the previous year. So these are the two uh most interesting or key findings that we have.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 12:13

When I look specifically at the um European numbers, one of the things that jumped out to me was 42% of companies improving their margins, even though their revenue have fell. It feels like the industry has done a decent job of adapting to maybe a slightly shrinking or flat market. Is that a sign of resilience or is that just painful cost cutting?

Christoph Solka, Director Industry Intelligence at the Global Electronics Association 12:35

I would say genuine resilience and and cost reductions do not have to be necessarily contradictions. So companies that have tight control over the costs are resilient as a result. And it's a truism to say that cost control can sometimes be painful, and that is reflected, as I said earlier, in the headcount figures. So there are very likely hardly any companies that left that operate operate in a comfortable niche and therefore are unaffected by the economic developments. But there are also companies in a better position, like we saw, like some companies even were able to increase their revenues, and they were able to uh be not touched by these developments. So yeah, generally resilient depends on who you are, but I think we also are price paid.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 13:25

And it's building some agility into their business models, it's building some flexibility because if there's one thing we've learned from since pre-COVID um times, is that disruptions come, they come thick and fast. And uh every time we're over one, there's another one. At the moment, it's uh memory shortages, and uh we're back in we're back in that the stress with the supply chain, it'll be something else in uh in a few weeks.

The One Insight Companies Need

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 13:50

Um, the last question with all the platforms now in place, what's the single most important insight you want the global electronics industry to take from the data you're now in charge of, taking care of?

Christoph Solka, Director Industry Intelligence at the Global Electronics Association 14:03

The market developments show that as an EMS or PTPCB producer, you need to be really aware of what is happening around you. So that's that's crucial for your planning, for your strategy, and so on. And you have to recognize those emerging problems that you you touched as soon as possible. And that's uh I think the only way to shape your future successfully. And as an association, we try to support the industry uh through our analysis, in particular by uh creating what you call what you called earlier, actually in the introduction, is the most comprehensive suit of EMS market intelligence ever assembled under one roof. And we are aiming to further improve the analysis and thereby provide the insights that are needed for that for the companies and the industry.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 14:49

Yeah, I think that's huge. And I think when I look forward at what you can achieve, the the fact that you've brought together all these data models, but the fact that as an association you bring together the whole supply chain gives you a view of everything that's going on, but it also gives you the voice of everybody so you can respond to them in producing the right analysis, as you say, um, from that report. Congratulations to the Global Electronics Association for putting this together. I think it's valuable. On a personal note to you, Christoph, congratulations for uh on your e-roll. I think it's I think it's super exciting, and you've got the opportunity to do something quite unique here. Um, so I look forward to talking to you more on that. But in the meantime, thanks so much for your time. Thank you very much for having me.