70% of Global PPE Resin Supply Cut Off, PCB Prices Surge 40% in a Single Month
Taylor Wilson
The Middle East conflict has shut down roughly 70% of global PPE resin production, sending PCB prices up as much as 40% in April alone — a supply shock now rippling from raw chemicals all the way to finished electronics.
Why can one resin shutting down shake the entire electronics supply chain?
Saudi Arabia's Jubail industrial zone supplied about 70% of global PPE resin, but shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz forced its factories to halt production by late March.
PPE resin — a specialty chemical used to make high-end circuit boards — is a core input for PCBs (printed circuit boards), which sit inside virtually every modern electronic device.
This means → a single chokepoint in one strait has bottlenecked the manufacturing chain from smartphones to servers, far beyond the energy sector alone.
How far have prices moved, and how aggressively is the market pricing this in?
Goldman Sachs reports that PCB prices rose up to 40% in April versus March — an unusually sharp one-month jump.
U.S. PCB maker TTM Technologies has seen its stock surge over 400% in the past year; the market is already pricing in severe supply tightening.
Analysts warn: if the resin disruption lasts into the autumn, end consumers will feel price hikes on everyday electronics.
What do the major banks say about the pass-through path?
Bank of America sees the copper-clad laminate and PCB supply chain as positively tilted on supply-demand, supporting both product pricing and corporate earnings.
Citi notes that electronic glass-cloth prices have risen faster than expected, and projects the increase will pass through to CCL — copper-clad laminate, the key semi-finished input for PCBs — by month-end at the earliest.
In plain terms = copper, glass cloth, and epoxy resin are all rising in tandem; the question for laminates and PCBs is not *whether* prices go up, but *when*.
Why is AI driving an explosion in high-end PCB demand?
Morgan Stanley's supply-chain data shows Nvidia's next-gen VR200 carries a PCB cost of roughly $117,000 — versus just $35,000 for the prior GB300, an increase of over 233%.
This means → AI servers are not simply using "more boards"; each board's complexity and dollar value are jumping — a structural upgrade, not a cyclical swing.
Nomura estimates that per-unit PCB value in Nvidia GPUs will rise from $400 on the Blackwell platform to over $1,000 on Rubin Ultra.
Which Hong Kong-listed PCB plays stand out?
Kingboard Laminates (01888) has raised prices four times this year. On May 27 it hiked laminate prices by 10% and PP products by 20%, with another 15%+ increase planned for Q2. Citi projects that Kingboard Holdings (00148) will derive about 85% of core net profit from laminates and PCBs by 2028, up from roughly 60% in 2025.
Shenghong Tech (02476) is identified by Nomura as one of Nvidia's most important PCB suppliers, projected to capture 50%–55% share on the Rubin platform (2026–2028). Nvidia's revenue share in Shenghong is forecast to rise from 9% in 2024 to 38% by 2028.
Guanghe Tech (01989) focuses on custom PCBs for compute applications; its Thailand plant began commercial production in June 2025 and is ramping capacity. Han's Laser CNC (03200), a leading PCB equipment maker, has its ultrafast laser drilling machines Nvidia-certified, with M9-compatible units expected to ship in volume in 2026.
What is the "endgame variable" for this price cycle?
Whether the PPE resin disruption is resolved before autumn is the single most important variable determining how long and how far this PCB price cycle runs.
If the outage persists, pricing pressure will pass from the industrial tier to consumer electronics — smartphones, PCs, and automotive electronics will all feel the impact.
This reflects a deeper vulnerability: the global electronics supply chain's dependence on a single production hub is far greater than the market previously recognised.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.