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As with many business-to-business sectors, the electronics industry professional association’s magazine is a very clear market leader.

IEE Review, produced in-house by the Institution of Electrical Engineers, had an average net circulation of 131,271 for the period, 100,000 more than its nearest competitor, RBI’s Electronics Weekly.

“We aren’t really in competition with the institution’s magazine. In reality, there are two weeklies in the marketplace, so our major competition is Electronics Times and there isn’t a lot between us,” said Electronics Weekly marketing manager Steve Cox.

While the IEE Review saw a modest year-on-year increase of 1.1%, most of the other titles in the sector suffered circulation declines.

Most obviously hit were Wilmington’s Electronic Product Review, down 5.2% from last year, and RBI’s Electronics World, the only title with a significant newstrade presence, down 10.5% to an average net circulation of 18,298.

RBI, Wilmington, IML Group, Inside Communications and MIT all have a strong presence in the sector, with most titles showing strong reach through their controlled circulations. Only MIT’s Production Engineering Solutions and Electronics Manufacturing Products register the majority of their circulations as non-controlled.

“We had a good showing, but what hits us in terms of building up a good circulation database is the lack of people filling in response cards to get information from the magazine itself,” said EMP publisher Liam McCauley.

Instead they are seeing ads with web addresses and going straight to the websites, he added.

“People are still reading the magazines, but they are more and more becoming search engines for the web,” McCauley said.

He believes the trend will make it increasingly difficult to create and maintain quality databases. “Readers are going increasingly to the client in terms of advertising; I think that is a general worry across the titles in the sector,” he said.

Inside Communications’ Electronic Production saw year-on-year growth in average circulation of 8% across 10 issues, the largest percentage growth across the sector.

Total average circulation for the sector stood at 372,030 for the period, putting the electronics sector in fourth place in the top 20, up 6.4% year-on-year.