Crisil in its latest report has said 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 per cent despite their share of industry capacity remaining unchanged. It said the improvement was driven by supply-chain efficiencies, higher exports, and captive mines that limited the impact of iron ore shortage.
It mentioned higher exports helped counter lacklustre domestic demand for large steel makers (especially in the closing quarter of last fiscal and the first quarter of FY22). They also gained domestic market share, especially in the long-steel space. Consequently, players operated at more than 80 per cent utilisation levels as against sub-optimum levels of 62 per cent by midsized and small steel makers.
Besides, it also said large steel makers also benefited more from the rally in steel prices, given the dominance of flat steel in their portfolio. Domestic flat-steel prices have nearly doubled to Rs 72,000 per tonne in June 2021 from Rs 38,000 per tonne in June 2020. In comparison, long-steel prices rose 1.4 times to Rs 57,900 per tonne in the period under review. The price rally, spurred by China’s green policy, is likely to benefit through the first half of this fiscal, too, with flat steel prices already up 70 per cent since April. While prices will soften in the second half, they would still be 40-45 per cent higher on-year.
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