WCA September 2016

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78 Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2016
From the Americas
David Curry reported in ReadWrite (13th 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.
Telecom
‘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 3rd 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,” 3rd 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
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 1st 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.
Energy
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 23rd
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,