The beginning of the year has seen the highest level of sales sentiment for electronics components in five years. Would April’s results follow this momentum?
Indeed, it did as the Electronic Component Sales Trends (ECST) April survey from the Electronic Components Industry Association (ECIA) found that overall sales sentiment declined just slightly by 2.6 points to 146.6 points.
A score of above 100 represents growth in the ECIA report.
Positive view of sentiment continues to grow for passive components and electro-mechanical components while semiconductors maintained a stable position falling only 3.8 points between March and April.
Looking ahead
According to the ECIA report, May’s sales sentiment may see a falling off with a score of 130.5, down about 16.1 points from April.
The forecast sees every component category projected to experience weakening in sales sentiment from April to May. Electro-mechanical components will take the biggest hit in May with a decline of 22.3 points.
However, despite the decline in the forecast, overall sales sentiment will remain strong with every individual component category seeing a sales sentiment score well above the 100-point threshold.
Overall, 2026 continues to show very good sales sentiment health through five months, despite a softening in April and May.
End markets suffer
The end market suffered the most significant decline in sales sentiment in the April ECST report as the overall market score fell from a high of 161.8 in March to 137.5 in April.
ECIA forecasts another 24.5 decline in May, dropping to 113.0.
On the bright side, ECIA reports that only 9% of survey respondents had a worse outlook in May than April and still every end-market but two — consumer electronics and mobile phones — are well over 100 for both April and May.
ECIA said that even at 113.0 points that is significantly better than May 2025 when the score was 93.1 points and April was also well below the 100-point threshold.
Supply chain aligned
Among the three major supply chain groups, they continue to report positive sales sentiment in every component subcategory.
However, distributors had stronger assessments in their scores while manufacturer representatives and manufacturers were generally aligned with the industry.
Lead times continue to creep up
Once again, respondents found that lead time pressure grew again in April. The strongest time pressure was found in semiconductors.
ECIA found no reports of declining lead time pressure in the April survey.
About the ECIA ECST report
The ECST survey provides highly valuable and detailed visibility on industry expectations in the near-term through the monthly and quarterly surveys. This “immediate” perspective is helpful to participants up and down the electronics components supply chain. In the long-term, ECIA shares in the optimism for the future as the continued introduction and market adoption of exciting innovative technologies should motivate both corporate and consumer demand for next-generation products over the long term.
The complete ECIA ECST report is delivered to all ECIA members as well as others who participate in the survey. All participants in the electronics components supply chain are invited and encouraged to participate in the report so they can see the highly valuable insights provided by the ECST report.
The monthly and quarterly ECST reports present data in detailed tables and figures with multiple perspectives and covering current sales expectations, sales outlooks, product cancellations, product decommits and product lead times. The data is presented at a detailed level for six major electronic component categories, six semiconductor subcategories and eight end markets. Also, survey results are segmented by aggregated responses from manufacturers, distributors and manufacturer representatives.
Interested in reading the entire ECST report? Click here for more information.
