Nippon Steel Group Hits First 30% Cold Rolled Stainless Share in 3 Years

Japanese top 6 cold rolled stainless steel makers kept the positions in the production ranking in fiscal 2010 ended March 2011 as fiscal 2009. The production increased by 21.2% to 1.569 million tonnes, which is 88% of the peak fiscal 2007. The production increased for the first time in 3 years.

Nippon Steel group including Nippon Steel & Sumikin Stainless Steel Corporation raised the share by 0.9 percentage point to 30.2% of Japanese cold rolled stainless steel production in fiscal 2010 from fiscal 2009, which increased to more than 30% for the first time in 3 years. Nippon Steel increased the production by 37.5% to 194,655 tonnes and NSSC by 17.6% to 299,600 tonnes.

Nisshin Steel dropped the share by 2.0 points to 25.2% while the production increased by 12.2% to 394,951 tonnes in fiscal 2010 from fiscal 2009. JFE Steel raised the share by 1.2 points to 18.9% and the production increased by 29.3% to 297,031 tonnes.

Among 4 makers, NSSC and JFE Steel significantly increased the production for automobile when the automobile industry account for major part of the makers’ shipment.

Nippon Metal Industry raised the share by 0.1 point to 9.1% and the production increased by 23.0% to 154,106 tonnes in fiscal 2010 from fiscal 2009. Nippon Yakin Kogyo raised the share by 0.4 point to 9.1% and the production increased by 26.9% to 142,351 tonnes. The firm increased high nickel alloy cold rolled sheet production. Nippon Kinzoku dropped the share by 0.4 point to 2.9% while the production increased by 9.5% to 46,216 tonnes.