Fibre Optic Cable - North America/A very good year in the US, more modest growth in Canada and Mexico

摘要

Since the last issue, we have not significantly revised our assessment of Q4 06 and 2006 as a whole - it was a very good year, the best year since 2001. US shipments of fibre optic cable increased by 27 percent to 23.3 million fibre-km, with demand up by 33 percent. Canadian demand was up in 2006, driven by projects in Western Canada, associated with the 2010 Winter Olympics, and in Eastern Canada, associated with government and municipality projects, but the annual demand increase was only 8 percent, as confirmed by import statistics. Mexican demand was up by 15 percent in 2006, driven mainly by infrastructure projects, especially roads and power utilities, where cable was laid taking advantage of rights-of-way.