Проблема перевода экономических неологизмов

Don't, however, expect either of these things to happen, at least for a while. The big retailers, which so far represent about 5% of eBay's business, are not getting favourable treatment. "There are no special deals. I am passionate about creating this level playing field," says Mrs Whitman. As for PayPal, even though it is increasingly being used as a currency across the internet, she says she does not want it to become a bank, especially with all the onerous regulation that would involve.

Instead, Mrs Whitman is concentrating on making the existing business bigger and better. For her, this has to be the way forward, not least because it is also the way that the "eBay community" is directing the firm. Mrs Whitman sees her job not just as a chief executive, but also partly as something like a mayor running a town-hall meeting. Her constituents want her to provide the best infrastructure for them to get on with doing their own business with one another. And they would like her to make sure everyone keeps to the rules. Many individuals and companies now depend on eBay to reach their customers. Several million part-time businesses are run on eBay, and it is reckoned that tens of thousands of people have given up their jobs to make a full-time living selling on the site. They often see eBay as a way of profiting from a hobby or other interest.

As with any community, security is a concern. While eBay has its own team to hunt down fraudsters, the most important way that transactions are kept honest is by members policing themselves. The company has developed a unique feedback system in which both buyers and sellers rate one another each time a deal is completed. These personal profiles, which can be examined by anyone, have become a valuable means for traders to establish their credibility. The way eBay earns its money is by letting everyone else do the work and taking a small fee for listing an auction, plus a commission from a completed sale. On top of that, various value-added services are offered to regular users, including links to sellers' own online shop-fronts.

Mrs Whitman is convinced that, by holding to such a strategy, eBay will remain ahead of the pack. "We do what we do better than anyone else," she says. That eBay has already survived earlier sorties on to its turf, not least by the likes of Microsoft and Yahoo!, is a testament to the strength of its approach.

Kicking tyres

So far, eBay's users have been dictating the strategy. It was the community's desire to use PayPal, rather than a rival in-house payments system which the company was promoting, that persuaded Mrs Whitman to buy PayPal. To the surprise of many eBay managers, used-car trading began a few years ago. And, strange as it may seem, there are people who will bid for a four-year-old Buick without ever having been able to kick its tyres. That operation, called eBay Motors, is likely to turn over almost $6 billion-worth of vehicles this year, making it one of the biggest used-car markets in the world. It is even used by Detroit. The eBay traders are already spawning new businesses: inspection services for online car-sales, for instance, and firms that will auction other people's goods on eBay on their owners' behalf.

Looking out for the interests of millions of online entrepreneurs as they click through auctions of mostly second-hand and clearance stock might not appear as glamorous as cutting deals with big retailers. But it is as necessary. The biggest advantage of eBay is its size and the networking effect which that creates. If you are a seller, it is the place with the most buyers; if you are a buyer, it is the place with the most price information.

The advantage of size can only grow as eBay expands overseas, which is why Mrs Whitman is so keen on venturing abroad. She is finding it easy to build a multinational that is able to think globally, but act locally. The firm's foreign sites rapidly become local, as the traders use their own language and establish their terms of trade. These can vary a great deal: alcohol sales are largely banned in America, for instance, but wine is a big category on eBay's French website.

As the company spreads across Europe and Asia, it usually does so by buying what Mrs Whitman calls "baby eBays", local imitators who help pioneer the concept. She is currently eyeing such a firm in India, which could be a potentially huge new market to enter. As long as the queen of the online flea market can keep her subjects happy, eBay will continue to thrive.

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Business The Economist January 3rd 2004

The year of the car

DETROIT

Detroit's Big Three are serious about making cars again

JIM PADILLA, president of Ford's North American operations, wants 2004 to be "the year of the car". When the Detroit motor show opens on January 4th, Ford will roll out an array of new passenger cars, such as the 500 to replace its ageing Taurus. Not for years has Ford put so much emphasis on saloons rather than on the pick-ups, sport-utility vehicles and mini-vans in the light-truck segment that dominates American sales. It is not alone. Amongst Chrysler's new cars is the 300c, its first rear-wheel-drive saloon in more than 20 years, and the Magnum, its first estate car since 1984. At General Motors (gm), it is much the same story.

This may seem odd. The booming light-truck segment accounts for over half the sales of America's Big Three carmakers; for Chrysler it is two-thirds. For the past decade this part of the market has provided all Detroit's profits, while cars have lost money, outclassed by Japanese rivals. So why shift resources? Because, as David Cole, chairman of the Centre for Automotive Research, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, puts it, "there is no sanctuary any more".

Over the past 20 years the American market has split. The Japanese have dominated cars with good, economical models, while the retreating Big Three concentrated on the light-truck segment. But now the Japanese are advancing on Detroit's last redoubt. Toyota offers more sport-utility models than Ford, while Nissan could do well with its first big pick-up, the Titan. Even Ford's new version of its

F-150 truck (America's best-selling vehicle) is being sold at discounts of up to $1,000.

To survive, Detroit's manufacturers have to retaliate on all fronts. This means improving their car ranges: upgrading them from basic, boring vehicles, bought mostly by rental companies at knockdown prices, to attractive models that can be sold profitably. Over the past two years, American carmakers have tried to stem their loss of market share with discounts. This worked, at least in keeping overall sales buoyant. Throughout America's economic slowdown, sales remained at about 90% of their peak.

Detroit officials, such as John Devine, gm's chief financial officer, insist that the discounts are money well-spent, largely because carmakers do not have much scope for saving money by reducing output and so costs. Restrictive union deals with the Big Three have limited lay-offs. With American car firms struggling, that is beginning to change. Following last summer's deal with the United Auto Workers Union (uaw), the Detroit carmakers will close at least six assembly and component plants and sell off other operations. Faced with a bleak assessment of the future, the union agreed to try to narrow the productivity gap with the mostly non-union factories opened in America's southern states by European and Japanese manufacturers. Such factories will soon have the capacity to produce more than 25% of the vehicles sold in North America. However, the uaw refused to budge on health care, now one of the biggest single items in the cost of a Detroit car. That led Ford's chairman, Bill Ford, to call for a national healthcare programme.

On top of the health-care costs there are the carmakers' huge unfunded pensions. After 20 years of shedding workers, the Big Three now have far more retirees than active employees. At gm, the ratio is 2.4:1. At the start of 2003, the stockmarket downturn left the company with a pension-fund deficit of $19.3 billion. Many observers feared that gm would have to scrub new-product plans to raise cash. However, the company (unexpectedly) almost closed the gap by the end of 2003, helped by a successful bond issue and the pending sale of its DirecTV business, gm's pension expenses are expected to fall by at least $1 billion this year.

Nonetheless, the months to come will be hard-especially for Ford and Chrysler, both struggling to keep turnaround plans on track. Tough selling conditions "went far beyond our expectations", concedes Chrysler's chief executive, Dieter Zetsche. Both manufacturers desperately need a reprieve from price-cutting, although gm seems unlikely to co-operate.

Both companies hope to draw customers with new products, rather than with discounts. Ford is setting sales records with its updated F-150, but Chrysler is finding success more elusive. Critics contend that this reflects poorly on Mr Zetsche's plan to move the company upmarket. It seemed a sound strategy on paper as the firm's commodity brands-Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep-are caught up in the discounting wars. But buyers largely rejected the fancy $40,000 versions of Chrysler's new Pacifica. Sales only began to take off when the company switched to lower-priced versions and gave bigger discounts.

Ford and gm emerged from 2003 in slightly better shape than many sceptics expected. Ford, for instance, had by the last quarter, turned its European and Latin American businesses into profit again, and was making money for the first time at its Premier Automotive Group (containing brands such as Jaguar and Land Rover) as well as in its burgeoning East Asian business. Its underlying 2003 profits will exceed initial expectations.

But now that the Japanese, South Koreans and Germans have unleashed an assault on the light-truck market, Detroit has to respond aggressively. Do the Big Three have what it takes to fight back this time? Their new cars must win customers and do so profitably. This looks like the only way Detroit can stay on the road.

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Business The Economist January 3rd 2004

Has Kodak missed the moment?

Not for the first time, Kodak is trying to find a future beyond film

“KODAK is changing the picture," declared the boss of the world's leading photographic company with a strategy to "drive digital imaging to new markets." With film-less digital cameras one of the hottest-selling consumer items in 2003, few could argue with that-except that it was announced by George Fisher eight years ago. Now it is his successor, Daniel Carp, who took over as chief executive in 2000, who is trying to secure a digital future for Kodak. The risk is that after more than 100 years of bringing the wonders of photography to millions, Kodak will again make a half-hearted transition. If the firm stumbles this time, a break-up beckons.

In some areas, Kodak has delivered on Mr Fisher's pledge: only Sony rivals its EasyShare brand of digital cameras in America. Kodak is also strong in some other digital areas. But the new technology has thrown open the market to rivals in related industries-among them, Sony in consumer electronics, Hewlett Packard in computers, Seiko Epson in printers, and Nokia in mobile phones (which now take digital pictures too).

As prices fall and performance improves, even many professional photographers are going digital. This rapid uptake surprised the Rochester, New York, company. When photography was a matter of exposing rolls of film, Kodak was primarily in the chemicals business: making films, darkroom agents and light-sensitive papers. Now this part of its business is shrinking more quickly than expected.

In September 2003, Mr Carp announced what he called the "biggest turning point" in Kodak's history. There would, he said, be no more big investments in traditional film. He also slashed the company's dividend by 72% to finance a $3 billion investment and acquisitions drive. This is intended to broaden Kodak into three imaging businesses: consumer, commercial and health. By 2010, Mr Carp hopes for revenues of $20 billion. In 2002, some 70% of the company's revenues came from its traditional film products, the remainder from digital. By 2006, the plan is for digital revenues to account for 60%.

That will take some doing. In the nine months to September 30th 2003, Kodak's net revenues rose by only 1.5% (to $9.5 billion), and despite the first profits from its digital cameras, net profits fell by 63% to $246m. Over the next three years, Kodak expects film sales to fall by 10% or more every year in America and Europe, and by up to 20% a year in Japan.

Companies that find their business model threatened by rapid technological change often fail to adapt successfully. Kodak is trying to capitalise on opportunities created by digital photography, such as designing easier-to-use equipment. It has also recruited executives with experience at firms such as ge, hp and Lexmark.

In recent months, Kodak has spent more than $зоо m on acquisitions, including the $250 m purchase from Israel's Scitex of an Ohio-based digital-printing business - an operation, ironically, that Kodak sold to Scitex in 1993 for $70m. As it makes more purchases, will Kodak get carried away and pay prices which are too high? "The top management team is desperate to replace a cash flow that everyone knows will evaporate," says one knowledgeable observer. "Desperation has a way of clouding managers' judgment."

Kodak officials naturally disagree. Investments will be selective and disciplined, says a spokesman. "Digital is far less capital-intensive than film," he adds. Nevertheless, worries remain. Standard & Poor's, a debt-rating service, is concerned that Kodak's pace of acquisitions could outstrip its ability to generate cash.

Managing the traditional film business for cash is how Kodak plans to fund much of its strategy. It has described emerging markets as its "reservoir of growth". In China, for instance, it expects film sales to grow by 7-9% a year until 2006. In India, an annual growth rate of 6-8% is expected. In China, it has purchased a 20% stake in Lucky Film, the country's biggest maker of camera film, for $100 m.

This latter deal seems to be the sort of investment in its traditional business which Kodak said would stop. It suggests that the company may still be hopelessly hooked on film. While picture-taking is bound to grow as emerging markets become more affluent, there is no guarantee that film-based products will grow in line with that demand. New consumers in emerging economies often skip a generation of technology-from no-phone to cellphone, for example, with their first leap into telecoms. As digital photography becomes cheaper and easier, many Chinese and Indians will bypass film and go straight to digital equipment. If that is coupled with cut-throat pricing in both developed and developing markets, Kodak could quickly find itself in trouble.

Some Kodak shareholders, who have witnessed the value of their stock trade at lows not seen for two decades, have been infuriated by Mr Carp's plans for acquisitions and growth.

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