WCA September 2012

From the americas

success as, over the next 15 months, it launches five vehicles whose current models account for 70 per cent of its US sales. Notably, he wrote, Nissan will present a new version of its best-selling Altima mid-size sedan (“the automaker’s first entry in the hot market for family-hauling crossovers, replacing the old-style Pathfinder SUV”) in September. (“Nissan Primed for Record Share,” 23 rd June). Nissan, which already builds more cars and trucks in North America than any other foreign-based automaker, plans to add a third shift at its Smyrna, Tennessee, plant this fall to meet demand for the new Altima, which boasts a highway fuel economy rating of 38 miles per gallon. Together with other new-version models in the works for this year and next, the Altima programme prompted analyst Rebecca Lindland of IHS Automotive to pronounce Nissan’s future “very, very bright, product-wise.” Even so, Mr Phelan reported, IHS is much more restrained about Nissan’s prospects than the automaker is. The consultancy expects the brand’s share of the US market to peak at 7.8 per cent in 2013 and decline to 7.1 per cent in 2015. As it happens, the Atima is not the only retooled mid-size sedan soon to become available to American buyers. The Chevrolet Malibu, Ford Fusion, and Honda Accord also hit the dealerships this year: new models, all. “Consumers are very open to new brands and products right now,” Ms Lindland told the Free Press. “But the competition is fierce.” Radio spectrum cannot be created but only apportioned. With demand on the rise, how is spectrum used efficiently? Wireless carriers in the US have been warning the government about the impending exhaustion of their resources, brought on by rising demand for wireless data transmission. Martin Cooper, the former vice president of Motorola who helped create the first working cellphone, is of the contrarian view that technology offers the solution to satisfying the insatiable American appetite for wireless capacity. Recently a presidential advisory committee concurred, urging President Obama to promote methods of using radio spectrum more efficiently. On 31 st May, the New York-based “Bits” blogger Brian S Chen conducted an extensive interview with Mr Cooper. Here, abridged and lightly edited, are some highlights of the question-and-answer session: AT&T and Verizon, among others, say a spectrum crisis could slow mobile devices and retard the national economy. Telecom

In 2011, China won a WTO complaint similar to the one lodged this May against US duties on imports of Chinese steel pipes, among other products. China’s latest case, its seventh against the United States since it joined the WTO in 2001, commences with a Chinese “request for consultations” with the US on an amicable settlement. But it could move to arbitration if agreement is not reached, and the US could be compelled to lift its duties and even compensate China if it is found to have broken the rules. Reporting from Geneva for Reuters, Tom Miles observed that the dispute “adds more heat to a trade relationship that has barely stopped simmering despite the United States seeing signs of China ‘making progress’ towards easing restrictions on its currency” — one of the main causes of friction between the two. (“China’s WTO Suit Hits Back At US Duties,” 25 th May). Two other Chinese-US trade disputes were already under consideration by WTO dispute panels when China lodged its latest complaint. One of these, concerning Chinese imports of electrical steel, was decided in favour of the US on 15 th June. The panel accepted objections raised by the US to Chinese countervailing duties on potentially hundreds of millions of dollars worth of grain-oriented flat-rolled electrical steel made by AK Steel Corp. (West Chester, Ohio) and ATI Allegheny Ludlum (Pittsburgh) for use in the power sector. ❖ Although the overall pace of China’s export growth has slumped to single digits this year, its trade surplus with the United States set a record of more than $295 billion in 2011. This has put additional pressure on US manufacturers whose markets are still recovering from the global financial crisis. Nissan has high hopes for enlarging its already impressive share of the US market — but ‘the competition is fierce’ “The pieces are falling into place. Ten per cent of the market would be an historic level, but it’s not a plateau. We won’t sit there. We’ll keep deploying new products. Reaching ten per cent share is a moment to savour, but not the end.” So said Bill Krueger, vice chairman of Nissan Americas, in an interview with the Detroit Free Press. It is a measure of his ambition that the dismissable 10 per cent of the US market has yet to be achieved. Nissan hopes to ride the wave of fuel-efficient new cars and crossovers to that record percentage by 2015 or 2016. According to WardsAuto.com, the Yokohama-based company’s share was 7.4 per cent last year. Detroit Free Press auto critic Mark Phelan acknowledged that Nissan could indeed be primed for unprecedented Automotive

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Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2012