WCA September 2016

From the Americas David Curry reported in ReadWrite (13 th June) that the standardisation will also enable JFE Steel factories to reinforce one another: if a mill is achieving a higher production rate or superior steel quality, its methods can be quickly instituted at the other mills. Mr Curry suggested that it will “be tough” for JFE Steel to create the single database, since its steel mills in Chiba, Kanagawa, Okayama and Hiroshima all use different operating systems. The company did not say whether it will try to bring farther-flung JFE ventures – California Steel; Fujian Sino-Japan, in China; Minas de Serra Geral, in Brazil – into the new system. ‘Put under a microscope’ by Washington, China’s Huawei is stymied yet again in its plans to advance in the USA Huawei Technologies, already the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, has been making significant gains in both the smartphone and mobile infrastructure markets. With demand up in both segments, the Chinese company posted a 33 per cent increase in net profit in 2015 over the previous year, on revenues of $60.8 billion. The information and analytics firm IHS pronounced Huawei the No 2 vendor of LTE gear worldwide in the second quarter of this year, with a 22 per cent share of the market. But Huawei’s efforts to tap the USA infrastructure market have been thwarted by national security concerns, and very few American carriers sell Huawei phones to their customers. Now, those efforts have suffered another setback. On 3 rd June, the US Commerce Department subpoenaed Huawei, requesting that it turn over “all information regarding the export or re-export of American technology to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.” The subpoena, sent to Huawei’s headquarters in the Dallas area in Texas, is part of an investigation into whether Huawei violated American export controls. The subpoena does not signify a criminal investigation, and Huawei has not been accused of wrongdoing. The company said “it was committed to complying with laws and regulations where it operated.”  The Huawei subpoena comes on the heels of sanctions against ZTE for allegedly violating USA export controls on Iran. The Commerce Department said it had uncovered plans by ZTE to use multiple shell companies to re-export controlled items to Iran in violation of USA control laws. Like Huawei, ZTE is a China-based technology company. The US sanctions against ZTE were lifted, temporarily, in March.  The broader implications of the matter were reflected in an article in the South China Morning Post (“US Probe of Huawei, ZTE Casts Harsh Light on Chinese Telecoms Equipment Manufacturers,” 3 rd June). After glossing the news, reporters Bien Perez and He Huifeng commented that that massive Chinese sector appears to have been “put under a microscope” by Washington. As for the Chinese company at the centre of the scrutiny, Mr Perez and Ms Huifeng wrote: “The US probe could throw a monkey wrench into the ambitious global expansion Telecom

plans of Huawei, the world’s third-largest smartphone supplier and No 1 global equipment supplier to telecoms network operators by revenue.” Americans are generally happy with their smartphones, but one in four has complaints about battery life In the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) for last year, Apple and Samsung were neck-and-neck at 80 per cent. This year’s results, released 1 st June, show Samsung retaining its 2015 score. Apple took sole possession of the industry lead with 81 per cent of its subscribers professing contentment with its services. In the large-scale survey of 12,710 American telecom customers, chosen at random, the satisfaction benchmark (score) of Lenovo’s Motorola receded three per cent (to 77); so did HTC’s score (to 75), while LG remains at 74. Microsoft Mobile (with both Nokia- and MS-branded phones) dipped to 74, followed by the smaller manufacturers which as a group edged up three per cent to a score of 73. As noted by Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac , when it comes down to specific models Apple did not score the most satisfied customers. The survey put Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus, at 85 per cent, behind the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 at 86 per cent. All four top devices are phablets. Mr Lovejoy observed that smartphones generally score well on customer satisfaction. The main complaint centres on battery life; here, the ACSI found that satisfaction levels fall to 75 percent. Headquartered at the University of Michigan, the American Customer Satisfaction Index aggregates its collected data to produce customer satisfaction benchmarks for 43 industries and ten economic sectors which together represent a broad swathe of the USA national economy. As awareness of the importance of energy efficiency grows, battery-based storage systems command attention A recent survey of more than 1,200 facility and energy management executives in the USA, Germany, Brazil, China and India disclosed that interest and investment in energy efficiency are at an all-time high. The 2016 Energy Efficiency Indicator (EEI) was conducted by Johnson Controls Inc, a Wisconsin-based multinational conglomerate that produces batteries and electronics for automotive applications and HVAC equipment for buildings. The results of the current survey were released on 23 rd June at the Energy Efficiency Forum in Washington DC, co-sponsored by Johnson Controls and the United States Energy Association. Fifty per cent of the EEI respondents said their organisations are paying more attention to energy efficiency today than they did a year ago, with 72 per cent anticipating increased investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy over the next 12 months. The comparable responses for 2013 were 37 per cent and 42 per cent. Organisations are investing in energy efficiency mainly to reduce costs; but more all the time are considering security, Energy

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Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2016

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