wiredinusa July 2011

INDEX

New agent for the USA

R ichard Ellis, of Cable Materials Inc, has joined the team of Inhol/PTL. Richard has spent his entire career in the cable industry, working for AT&T, Sumitomo Electric, Lantor, Neptco, and AlphaGary before founding Cable Materials Inc in August 2010. He has been instrumental in developing and introducing new technology to the North American cable market,

ranging from optical fiber transmitters/receivers to dry water blocking materials, and will work closely with Ron Goethals to develop new products. Richard will be Inhol/PTL’s commercial representative in North America, and the Inhol representative to various industry and standards associations.

Goodyear sells its global wire operation

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co has agreed to sell its global wire operation to South Korea- based tire reinforcements producer Hyosung Corporation for around $50 million. The business manufactures tire reinforcement wire in Asheboro, North Carolina and Colmar-Berg, Luxembourg, employing around 600 people. The sale comes five years after Goodyear sold its global tire fabric operations to Hyosung,

which has tire reinforcement operations in in Brazil, China, Luxembourg, Vietnam and the US. In a statement Goodyear, the largest tire maker in the US, said that the sale of the wire business is not expected to result in a significant gain or loss, but that the two companies will sign a multi-year supply agreement after the closing of the deal, which is expected to take place later this year.

Anticipated growth in cellphone unit shipments

A n IC Insights report predicts that shipments of cellular handsets will touch 1.55 billion in 2011, a 9% increase over the 1.4 billion shipped in 2010, and will continue to grow by 8% in 2012 before declining slightly in 2013. The 2009–2014 cellphone unit shipment compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is forecast to be less than half the 2002–2009

CAGR. However, surging shipments of smartphones, and their associated high IC content, are forecast to have a huge impact on the IC market through the forecast period. Smartphones accounted for about 25% of total cellphone shipments in 1Q11 compared to 16% in the same quarter a year earlier, the report states.

54

wiredInUSA July

wiredInUSA July

55