ITSA UK has published its connector market year-end report for 2024. Overall members reported a reduction in YoY revenues of -4 per cent but in some areas members experienced up to -30 per cent depending on technology and markets. Despite the low single-digit drop all members expressed concern about the markets in 2024 and all faced significant challenges.
It seems distributors have been destocking, hence the poor distributor revenues of -15 per cent and it would appear that customers had held off placing orders until the budget. It would also appear that customers had decided to use the 4th quarter of 2024 to place the held orders hence the jump in member order intake.
The level of new RFPs etc seems to be high and some key projects are rolling into 2025, but this is only masking members concerns over the prospects in 2025.
Members are facing a huge number of challenges: customer bad debt issues are increasing; recruitment of key skills remains a critical challenge; increase in employer NI costs; increase in minimum wage; and change to employee rights all conspire to make some membership more pessimistic. 2025 is looking like a year of caution.