Globally, the economic environment has seen some difficult times of late. In particular, the resulting effects of the pandemic are still causing inflationary pressures to permeate throughout all sectors. Despite higher prices and ongoing supply chain challenges, the forecast for the electronics industry still shows steady demand in 2023, primarily for manufacturers developing components for data, communication and transportation markets. We expect technologies, such as 5G, IoT, AI and electric vehicles, will grow in 2023 and beyond.
We continue to see the stock we hold as a differentiator. Because of that and our focus on new products, we saw a record year in 2022. (This was contributed to, of course, by semiconductor shortages). As a result, our customers know we can deliver the widest selection of genuine parts worldwide. We’re further expanding our Global Distribution Center to allow us to increase our capabilities.
We expect continued growth in 2023, mainly as supply chains improve across all major categories: semiconductors, interconnects, passives and electromechanical. We have two key areas: engineering tools and new product introductions (NPIs). We expect strong performance in these areas too. Mouser has added 140-plus new manufacturers to its portfolio in the last two-years to give our customers more choices.
This strategy has worked well, helping us be successful and allowing us to continue investing in inventory and new products—as well as develop our e-commerce site, mouser.com. This, in turn, means we can better serve our growing customer base of engineers and buyers.