Large steel makers gained market share last fiscal

Large steel makers took huge strides in terms of both operations and financial performance last fiscal, increasing their market share by 500 basis points (bps) on-year to 58% despite their share of industry capacity remaining unchanged.

The improvement was driven by supply-chain efficiencies, higher exports, and captive mines that limited the impact of iron ore shortage. Their capacity share is expected to rise this fiscal after JSW’s Dolvi plant expansion of 5.6 million tonne comes on stream.

Higher exports helped counter lacklustre domestic demand for large steel makers (especially in the closing quarter of last fiscal and the first quarter of this fiscal). They also gained domestic market share, especially in the long-steel space. Consequently, they operated at >80% utilisation levels as against sub-optimum levels of 62% by midsized and small steel makers.