Awakening of US Manufacturing: Steel, and Apple in China

choi

(1) Keith Schneider, As Demand Rises, Ohio’s Steel Mills Shake Off the Rust and Expand; Improved auto sales and a boom in gas and oil drilling are creating a strong market for steel. New York Times, Apr 25, 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/2 ... uto-industries.html

Quote:

"At the Timken Company’s mill here on Faircrest Street, orders for steel from domestic and export markets plunged so low in May 2009 that the plant operated just four days that month.

"'The need for specialty steel, much of it for oil and natural gas producers, is high in the United States and around the world,' said Salvatore J Miraglia Jr, the president of Timken’s steel group. * * * 'We’re shipping pipe to drilling operations in Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Texas, China,' said John Wilkinson, United States Steel’s interim plant manager. 'All over the country. All over the world. Some of it is being used here in Ohio.'

Note:
(a) Timken Company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timken_Company
(founded by Henry Timken in St. Louis, Missouri in 1899; Headquarters  Canton, Ohio)
(b) Canton, Ohio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canton,_Ohio
("Bezaleel Wells, the surveyor who divided the land of the town, named it after Canton (a traditional name for Guangzhou), China. The name was a memorial to a trader named John O'Donnell, whom Wells admired. O'Donnell had named his Maryland plantation after the Chinese city, as he had been the first person to transport goods from there to Baltimore")

(2) Nick Wingfield, After iPhone Sales Bonanza in China, Apple’s Profit Nearly Doubles; Sales in China trippled, totaling $7.9 billion, or almost 20 percent of Apple's revenue. New York Times, Apr 25, 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/2 ... -sales-grow-88.html

Quote:

"Mr [Tim] Cook said that Apple’s quarterly revenue from China was $7.9 billion, about 20 percent of total company revenue. Furthermore, that was triple Apple’s China sales in the same period a year ago. In contrast, Apple’s China sales during its last fiscal year were about 12 percent of total revenue. Two years ago, Apple sales in China were 2 percent. 'China has grown from a rounding error to a massive new market,' said Robert Cihra, an analyst at Evercore Partners. 'Their premium price point clearly has not been any hurdle to them growing there.'

"Some investors fear a repeat of a pattern from last year, when Apple said it lost some sales of the iPhone because of a steady escalation of rumors about the release of a new model. Those rumors were accurate; Apple announced the iPhone 4S in early October.

My comment: There is no need to read the rest.