Japan Electric Wire Makers Seek Higher Enameled Wire Price

Japanese electric wire makers try to increase the selling price of enameled wire by more than 10% for October. Furukawa Electric announced the price hike late August and other makers already started study or negotiation with buyers. They tries to cover higher cost for vanish and energy, especially for polyvinyl formal enameled copper wire (PVF) while the buyers resist the hike. An industry source expects the makers could get higher price only for PVF. Japanese top enameled wire maker of Sumitomo Electric said the firm starts study for price hike. The firm is suffered from higher varnish cost when the maker failed to pass the cost on the selling price. Furukawa Electric said varnish cost increased by around 40% and energy cost increased by 80% from fiscal 2004. Hitachi Cable also will launch price hike campaign while Unimac, which is joint venture of SWCC Showa Holdings and Fujikura, started the price hike negotiation in August. Hitachi Cable and Unimac are major makers for PVF. PVF represents more than 10% of around 2,000 tonnes per month of Unimac’s enameled wire production. Unimac said the cost of insulating coating materials of PVF increased in May and July and the impact is much higher than cost up for other enameled wire. Furukawa Electric group’s Riken Electric Wire offered 5-10% hike for enameled wire with smaller diameter in August. Tokyo based Totoku Electric seeks higher processing charge for October shipment and other smaller makers try to realize higher selling price. However, the buyers reject the price hike under slower demand condition. Unimac said the enameled wire shipment dropped in July while Riken Electric Wire experiences slower sales for electronic parts. A distributor source said the market condition changed in March for electric wire makers and in May for the distributors. Such slower demand could be hurdle for price hike effort by the electric wire makers.