9 80
9
Important signs of recovery were also
seen in the main West European nations,
particularly in the Nordic countries and the
Mediterranean, thanks to monetary easing
by the ECB which fostered a recovery in the
construction industry.
Demand in the United States expanded
albeit to a lesser extent than in 2014, like in
the Middle East and Africa. Russia and Brazil
experienced the largest downturns, caused
by the EU and US trade sanctions in Russia's
case and by the economic slump in Brazil's.
The various segments of the market had a
mixed performance, with strong expansion
by higher value-added ones like high voltage
and extra high voltage submarine cables
and optical fibre cables, which benefited
from growing demand for data transmission
capacity, in turn making it essential to
upgrade existing network infrastructure,
especially in some European countries like
Italy, France, Spain and the United Kingdom.
Global demand for optical fibre cables
also benefited from growing investments
in network infrastructure by China, the
world's largest market by volume, and from
the sustained growth of the US market, in
which new content providers are appearing
withprojects for very high capacity dedicated
networks.
From the depths of the sea
to cities: value added runs
on cable
The Prysmian Group, the world's top
producer of optical cables, benefited
from this trend, consolidating
its leadership in the European
market. It was a record year for the
submarine cables business, thanks to
interconnection contracts awarded by
leading network operators, particularly
in the North Sea, where the Prysmian
Group won new orders worth in
excess of Euro 1 billion. There were
also encouraging developments in the
Original Equipment Manufacturing
(OEM) sector, with considerable
progress in the areas of nuclear
energy, rail transport and port cranes,
while the mining and shipbuilding
industries recorded a slowdown. Oil
& Gas applications were affected by
the oil price slide, especially those
products serving the Maintenance,
Repair and Operations (MRO) business.
Prysmian consolidates its leadership,
record year for submarine
A recovery initiating in Asia
Asia continued to post new records in 2015.
The sharp acceleration in the Indian and
ASEAN markets, and China's reconfirmation
as the world's largest market, generated more
than 50% of the industry's global growth.
In the telecom business, Prysmian
benefited from the global growth in
demand for optical cables, especially in
North America, Europe and Australia.
Multimedia (MMS) applications also
displayed strong growth thanks
to the development of new data
centres in Europe.