2019 Forecast: ECCO getting “READY to RUMBLE”

December 17, 2018

What a year! While our global economy remains strong for the most part, I do see challenges on the horizon for electronics distributors as we deal with several unforeseen situations.

First of all, as tariffs remain in place into the new year, more shifting of manufacturing will take place and likely lengthen lead times and create continued inflationary pricing pressures with margin erosions likely.  Second, the new DIVIDED U.S. Government will create political slowdowns/shutdowns as the 2 parties share control of Congress which can lead to project funding stale mates for defense and infrastructure builds.  Lastly, global markets getting caught up in the trade wars will cloud long term consumer spending and employment. In fact, some US corporations have already stated that their 2H, 2018 earnings will be adversely affected by this prolonged trade war.

For ECCO, we remain optimistic despite this uncertainty as we focus on growing product lines and expanding into new markets. In fact, we recently added a shielded ‘heat shrink” line to our portfolio, ShrinkMate® which is a breakthrough in EMI/RFI shielding for cable systems. And see our Nov 29th press release on our expansion to Boston & increased presence in Aerospace & Defense business with the acquisition of Magellan.  See here:

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181129005143/en/ECCO-Electronic-Connector-finalizes-purchase-Magellan%E2%80%99s-Aerospace

So, with all the geopolitical and economic rumblings on global concerns,  our motto at ECCO in 2019 will be “BETTER GET READY TO RUMBLE”!