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Wire & Cable ASIA – March/April 2014
From the Americas
According to several buy-side sources, the bulk of hot
rolled mills were holding the line at $680 a ton. One
service centre executive said that, although occasional
lower-priced deals could be had, the US market overall
was “pretty strong sideways.”
❖ Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd and General Electric
Co have agreed to settle all their patent infringement
lawsuits concerning wind turbine technology in the US
by granting cross-licensing to each other.
According to a statement issued by the Japanese
company on 15th December in Tokyo, Mitsubishi Heavy
and GE – the largest US producer of wind turbines –
also agreed not to disclose details of the settlement.
The issue has been in dispute between the two
companies for some time. In 2008, GE (Fairfield,
Connecticut) filed a complaint with the US International
Trade Commission alleging that Mitsubishi’s 2.4-
megawatt turbines infringe its patents.
GE then filed suit with a district court in Texas in 2009,
and another in 2010, according to the statement.
Mitsubishi Heavy filed two lawsuits with district courts in
Florida and Arkansas, both in 2010.
Telecom
Fed up with suspicions of cyber
espionage, Huawei ostensibly will
quit some technology markets in the
United States
“Huawei, the Shenzhen, China-headquartered manufacturer
of telecom equipment, is throwing in the towel and will no
longer spend time, effort and money on trying to extend its
limited presence in the US.”
Martyn Warwick, of TelecomTV.One, was reporting on a
decision announced by the founder and CEO of Huawei,
Ren Zhengfei, during a 25th November interview with the
French publication Les Echos. Mr Ren said that, in the
interests of relieving tensions, Huawei has “decided to exit
the US market, and not stay in the middle.”
The reference was, of course, to the chronically rocky
relations between the US and China but also to concerns on
the part of American legislators that Huawei itself poses a
security threat to the United States.
Mr Ren’s declaration presumably meant that Huawei will
no longer seek telecommunications deals on American
networks, although it is considered unlikely to stop selling
equipment in that market. (“Huawei Admits Defeat and Exits
US market,” 4th December).
As noted by Phil Goldstein of FierceWireless (3rd December),
in 2012 both Huawei and ZTE were stung by a US
government report that the two Chinese companies pose
a security risk because their equipment can be used for
espionage — a claim Huawei and ZTE have vigorously and
repeatedly denied.
Neither firm has won a major network equipment contract
in the US, a market wide open to Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson,
Nokia Solutions and Networks, and Samsung.
Both Huawei and ZTE do have relatively strong handset
businesses in the US. Mr Goldstein also pointed out that,
despite being effectively shut out of the US network gear
market, Huawei has still managed to flourish in overseas
markets including Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
Indeed, according to ABI Research, for the third quarter
of 2013 Huawei ranked number one in global RAN market
share at 28.1 per cent, up 3.8 per cent from the year-earlier
quarter. Ericsson was number two with 21.8 per cent.
❖ Recalling Huawei’s long time and fruitless effort to break
into the US domestic networks market, Mr Warwick
of TelecomTV.One observed that how much of the
company’s sudden capitulation is “just sour grapes . . .
remains to be seen.” But in his interview with Les Echos,
Mr Ren sounded very like a man delivering a parting
shot.
“Anyway, our phones are selling very well in the US,”
the Huawei CEO reminded the French journalists. “They
can’t say our phones also have security problems, right?
That’s because the software is American, and not ours
[an apparent nod to Google’s Android, which powers
most of Huawei’s smartphones]. We do not have an
operating system. We do things reasonably.”
❖ Also on 4th December, Scott M Fulton III of Network
Computing pointed out a potential consequence of a
withdrawal by Huawei from the American market: “If
a US exit does actually come, it could embolden both
lawmakers and competitive manufacturers worldwide
to use the fear of global espionage as a successful
marketing and campaigning tactic.”
Elsewhere in telecom . . .
❖ According to data from the Internet analytics company
comScore, Apple is still the top smartphone maker in the
US with more than 40 per cent of the market, although
Android is the top mobile operating system (OS).
As of November 2013, Android’s share of the global
smartphone market, led by products made by Samsung
of South Korea, has reached 80 per cent.
As reported by Chloe Albanesius on PCMag.com (6th
December), comScore saw Apple with 40.6 per cent of
the US smartphone market for the three months ended
October 2013, up just 0.2 per cent from July. Samsung
came in at number two at 25.4 per cent, up 1.3 per cent;
followed by Motorola (seven per cent), Taiwan’s HTC (6.7
per cent), and South Korea’s LG (6.6 per cent).
All five companies had recent smartphone releases.
But Samsung, Motorola, HTC and LG have an
Android-dominated line-up, putting Android at the top of
comScore’s list of smartphone platforms with 52.2 per
cent of the market. Tracking its smartphone numbers,
Apple landed at 40.6 per cent, up 0.2 per cent, followed
far behind by the struggling BlackBerry (Canadian) and
the Windows Phone from Microsoft.
Dorothy Fabian – Features Editor