President Barack Obama is likely to push forward on the Trans-Pacific Partnership at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leader’s Summit, which opened Monday in Beijing, and may also target TPP progress at other meetings with heads of state in the coming days and weeks, said Peterson Institute for International Economics analysts. Immediately after the midterm elections, CEA President Gary Shapiro singled out a CE industry priority -- "fast-track trade authority" to reduce tariffs on high-tech goods -- as one of several legislative initiatives that he thinks will progress rapidly through a Republican-controlled House and Senate (see 1411050022). The Republican landslide in the midterms increases the likelihood that Congress and the White House will be able to cooperate on some critical pieces of the trade agenda over the coming months, said Peterson Institute senior trade analyst Jeff Schott on a Friday call with reporters. Obama and likely next majority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., pledged the day after the elections to move on trade. Congress is likely to vote on Trade Promotion Authority in the early weeks of 2015, and a TPP implementation vote could come within a year of securing TPA, said Schott.
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman prodded the Chinese government to put more concessions on the table in Information Technology Agreement expansion negotiations, saying such progress would be a “concrete contribution to strengthening the WTO system at a time when such a boost is needed.” The World Trade Organization is dealing with the late July collapse of the Trade Facilitation Agreement. While ITA expansion talks have not yielded any real breakthrough in years of negotiations, supporters of the agreement are eyeing the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which began Friday, as a window for progress (see 1411050010). Speaking at the APEC summit in Beijing Friday, Froman also praised slashed tariffs among APEC members.
Lionsgate plans by the end of 2014 to launch its Lionsgate Entertainment World streaming service in China with Alibaba, CEO Jon Feltheimer said Friday on an earnings call. Lionsgate also is in talks with "several other prospective partners for additional online branded platforms," Feltheimer said. "These initiatives all capitalize on our ability to innovate in the digital space as well as to reach niche audiences with branded quality content and targeted marketing." Lionsgate has "a lot of content available in China," including "premium series" like Mad Men and movies like Divergent, Feltheimer said in Q&A. "But I want to be clear that it's not only going to be our content" that will reside on the streaming service being launched with Alibaba, he said. "We're going to be curating other content for that platform." Lionsgate also has started shooting movie content with 360-degree cameras to "take advantage" of Oculus Rift and other virtual-reality 3D headset technologies, he said. "We're actually pretty excited about it." Lionsgate views it as "the kind of enhancement that will make our home entertainment product significantly more valuable," he said.
Qualcomm shares closed down 8.6 percent Thursday at $70.58 on the company’s disclosure in its 10-K SEC filing the previous evening that it’s the subject of two new regulatory investigations into its competitive practices. The FTC notified the company Sept. 17 that it has launched a probe into Qualcomm's licensing business, including a possible "breach" of its commitment to license its technology on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms, the 10-K said. Then on Oct. 15, the European Commission notified Qualcomm it was investigating the company’s sales and marketing of its baseband chipsets and possible irregularities in its use of rebates and other "financial incentives," the filing said. "We are fully cooperating with these agencies and believe our practices comply with the laws of our countries, but given that these matters are in their early stages, it is difficult to predict what, if anything, will come of them," CEO Steve Mollenkopf said on an earnings call Wednesday. The two new probes are in addition to a year-old investigation by China’s National Development and Reform Commission that Qualcomm may have violated Chinese anti-monopoly laws, the 10-K said. As key mobile technologies are increasingly becoming adopted into new categories, Qualcomm is "well-positioned" to exploit "these evolving opportunities," Mollenkopf said. Citing Gartner estimates that more than 8 billion smartphones will be sold globally through 2018, Qualcomm sees the smartphone as "representing the largest technology platform on which to innovate and drive upgrade opportunities," he said. "We believe the smartphone will be central to the growing number of connected things around us, and our focus is on aligning our resources to continue to capture these opportunities." Qualcomm is "very pleased with our design activity in the premium tier" of smartphone components, including "flagship devices" like the Snapdragon 805, Qualcomm’s first processor to offer "system-level Ultra HD support and 4K video capture and playback," he said.
The upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing will make for another opportunity for the U.S. and China to make headway in Information Technology Agreement negotiations, said John Neuffer, an Information Technology Industry Council senior vice president and an advocate for ITA expansion. Neuffer said in a Nov. 4 blog post that the two sides should narrow the gaps between negotiating positions following a recent groundswell of industry support for imminent expansion of the ITA, a pact that has not expanded its tariff liberalization since 1996 (see 14092912). ITA supporters, including Neuffer, have said a compromise between the U.S. and China could be on the horizon, but those negotiations have repeatedly collapsed (see 13112217). Both sides blame each other for the problems (see 13112727). Nonetheless, “as host to the APEC leaders’ meeting this year, ITA expansion is an opportunity for China to deliver a strong economic and trade outcome to the region. Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines, and others in the neighborhood are heavily reliant on tech trade and are big supporters of ITA expansion,” said Neuffer, saying ITA progress could invigorate multilateral negotiation progress at the World Trade Organization. “There are high expectations that China can seize this APEC moment to clear a path forward that will allow all the negotiating parties involved in ITA expansion to return to Geneva to conclude this landmark trade deal this year.” Many trade supporters are also targeting progress on a Trans-Pacific Partnership deal at APEC (see 1410300001).
Not quite six of 10 U.S. homes have Wi-Fi, and that puts the country in 11th place among major industrialized countries in terms of household Wi-Fi penetration, Strategy Analytics said in a report Wednesday. The firm puts the blame for the low U.S. ranking on slower adoption of Wi-Fi routers, though the U.S., in terms of number of Wi-Fi homes, ranks second only to China (72 million vs. 108 million), it said. The Netherlands is the top market for Wi-Fi penetration at 80.4 percent, followed by South Korea (76.4 percent), Norway (76.2 percent) and the U.K. (72.1 percent), it said. High fixed-line broadband penetration in those countries is the reason they lead, it said. "Contrary to common perception, not all consumers have embraced Wi-Fi networks in their homes despite the fact that global connected devices per household stand at 5.5 in 2014," the company said. "Wi-Fi router adoption in fixed-line broadband households still has much room to grow globally. As Wi-Fi technologies continue to advance, prices fall, and the technology becomes more familiar to the average consumer, nearly 80 percent of fixed-line broadband households will have established Wi-Fi networks by 2018."
House Ways and Means Committee members and other House members reached across the aisle in recent days to pressure U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman to safeguard digital products and cross-border data flow in the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other trade agreements. The bipartisan group of 55 House members threatened to reject a TPP implementation bill that fails to meet a robust standard of digital protection. “We encourage you to resist efforts by other countries to include overly broad exceptions that would unnecessarily undermine these provisions and provide lower levels of protection for digital products and services than other areas of trade,” said the letter, led by committee members Mike Kelly, R-Pa., and Ron Kind, D-Wis. “We also urge you to resist any delay in the implementation of dispute resolution mechanisms.” The Oct. 31 letter follows two other similar letters from lawmakers in recent weeks (see 1410280026).
Nineteen app companies from 12 European countries joined the Application Developers Alliance, the group said Friday. The new members included AppsFunder (Belgium); AppStud (France); Concise Software (Poland); D-Labs (Slovenia); DigiMark (Bulgaria); Instant Api (U.K.); Pollfish (Greece); and PubNative (Germany), it said. It’s “crucial that European developers’ voice is heard in Europe,” said Alliance President Jon Potter. “We want to ensure the developers have the right tools, opportunity and policy environment to continue to innovate and deliver great apps for users."
U.S. trade policy continues to lag behind Internet-related developments in global trade, and the U.S. should adjust its trade approach more for services as that sector grows at a quick pace, said the Computer and Communications Industry Association in comments to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. USTR asked for comments in mid-August to compile its annual report on foreign trade barriers. "The Internet has been the single biggest component of the cross border trade in services, with many of those services facilitating the international goods trade as well,” said CCIA in the comments released Wednesday night. “To protect U.S. economic interests, U.S. trade policy needs to prioritize addressing barriers to the Internet and Internet enabled services, given their key role in the U.S. economy and U.S. export growth.” Digital trade is inhibited by global Internet infrastructure mandates for local production, filtering and blocking of online material, and poor intellectual property protections, the CCIA said. Customs procedures and small shipment tariffs are also obstacles, said the association. Several lawmakers recently asked the USTR to work to ease cross-border data flows (see 1410280026).
Recent congressional pressure to ease cross-border data flows has the potential to fuel economic growth and job generation in the U.S., said the Telecommunications Industry Association Monday. Four senators urged the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Friday to remove data flow restrictions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (see 1410270005). "The ability to send commercial data across borders with minimal unnecessary restrictions is vital for U.S. businesses of all sizes and all sectors that conduct business here in the United States and around the world,” said the TIA. “A great example is how e-commerce has rapidly become the way that U.S. small businesses access global markets to expand their exports.” Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and ranking member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, alongside Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., had sent the letter to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman.