判断题
Servicing manufactured goods
Take it back, son
LOS ANGELES
On June 8th the Supreme Court ordered Eastman Kodak to stand trial in a competition case about the repair of expensive photocopiers. It has thrown a spotlight on the in- creasingly hostile relationship in America between manufacturing companies and the firms that service and repair the goods which the manufacturers produce.
If firms chose to use an indepen- dent service company, it is alleged, Kodak refused to supply either the servicing firm or the customer with spare parts. In effect, Kodak was trying to get customers to agree not to employ any firms that competed with it for service contracts on the Kodak machines.
Many economists would side with Kodak, rather than the court. They argue that consumers take servicing costs into account when buying equipment, so restrictive service agreements are not neces- sarily anti-competitive as long as there is competition in the equip- ment market itself.
The market for servicing high- technology electronic products alone is worth roughly $100 billion a year. Thousands of independent contrac- tors compete for the business, but the lion's share goes to equipment manufacturers.
Roughly a quarter of the revenues of America's computer makers comes from servicing and maintain- ing the machines they sell. Profit margins on service contracts can be as high as 50%. That comes in handy when profit margins on the sale of computers are disappearing because of recurring price wars.
Other industries may also be affected. Detroit's car makers also backed Kodak. In 1990 the retail market for car parts was worth $150 billion, about the same as that for new cars. Servicing cars came to another $100 billion on top of that. Detroit used to be happy to leave the repair business to morn-and-pop garages. No longer. Many indepen- dent distributors of spare parts complain that the big car makers are muscling in on their business.
Big manufacturers in Japan and Germany service nearly all their own products. But America's high job mo- bility and entrepreneurial traditions have encouraged many engineers in high-tech industries to set up service firms of their own, often to the fury of their former employers.
Not all manufacturers are keen on the repair and service business. Makers of cheaper electronic goods, such as washing machines, tele- visions and video-recorders, find it cheaper and easier to replace faulty machines with new ones, or encour- age customers to buy a new model, than to bother with spare parts. But many states in America require that manufacturers honour warranties on anything they sell. To satisfy the law they have appointed dealers and service agents. And yet because the manufacturers of electronic goods now view many of their products as disposable, they are in direct conflict with the dealers who have to provide service under those warranties.
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