Japanese Major 5 Copper Fabricators Gain Operating Profits for 3Q

Japanese major 4 copper fabricators gained the consolidated operating profits for 9 months of April-December 2009 other than Furukawa Electric’s operating loss. For 3 months of October-December 2009, all of the five makers posted the operating profits. High copper market price pushed up their profits while the demand recovered for electronic components and automobiles. Each maker’s cost cut efforts also contributed to the profit recovery.

San-Etsu Metals’ 9-month operating profit increased by 32% from the same period of fiscal 2008. Base metal market prices strongly surged during October-December 2009 and San-Etsu Metals gained the profit from the price gap between the inventory and the sold products. Meanwhile, the brass bar and wire sales volume was 47,034 tonnes for 9 months, decreasing by 14.5% from the same period of fiscal 2008. The demand maintained stagnant from the construction market.

The other brass bar makers, KITZ and Nippon Shindo, also posted year-on-year higher operating profits for April-December 2009.

Among copper strip makers, DOWA Holdings recovered the operating profit in the business unit for April-December 2009 though the business unit posted the operating loss for the same period of fiscal 2008. High copper market price, DOWA’s optimization effort and the demand recovery contributed to the profit recovery. The demand kept steady for automobiles, electronic components and semiconductors.

Furukawa Electric’s metals company posted the operating loss for 9 months but gained the operating profit at 1.1 billion yen for October-December 2009. Copper strip demand kept stable for semiconductors and automobiles though the sales were relatively inactive for electrolytic copper foil and copper tube.