Global Stainless Steel Market Research Report 2023-Competitive Analysis, Status and Outlook by Type, Downstream Industry, and Geography, Forecast to 2029

Global Stainless Steel Market Research Report 2023-Competitive Analysis, Status and Outlook by Type, Downstream Industry, and Geography, Forecast to 2029

Stainless steel is a group of iron-based alloys that contain a minimum of approximately 11% chromium, a composition that prevents the iron from rusting, as well as providing heat-resistant properties. Different types of stainless steel include the elements carbon (from 0.03% to greater than 1.00%), nitrogen, aluminium, silicon, sulfur, titanium, nickel, copper, selenium, niobium, and molybdenum. Specific types of stainless steel are often designated by a three-digit number, e.g., 304 stainless.

Market Overview:

The latest research study on the global Stainless Steel market finds that the global Stainless Steel market reached a value of USD 98426.3 million in 2022. It’s expected that the market will achieve USD 117843.76 million by 2028, exhibiting a CAGR of 3.05% during the forecast period.

Rising energy costs

It is expected that the rise in energy prices such as oil will bring greater challenges to the development of the stainless steel market. Global oil prices have been at market highs since 2022. The main reasons are:

Global oil demand was significantly better than expected. Since the beginning of 2022, as most of the symptoms caused by the Omicron strain are mild, and the total number of global vaccinations has exceeded 10 billion doses, many countries in Europe and the United States have successively lifted blockade measures, and oil demand has rebounded. Oil demand in the United States, Europe, Japan, India, South Korea, Singapore and other places has basically returned to pre-epidemic levels.

Global geopolitical turmoil intensifies. In 2022, many oil-producing countries will usher in an election year, with frequent supply disruptions. At the beginning of the year, Libya, Nigeria, Ecuador, Turkey and other countries experienced sudden supply interruptions one after another, which tightened the market supply. Since the beginning of the year, the situation in Russia and Ukraine has affected the market nerves, the two sides have continued to intensify war warnings, and geopolitical tensions have continued to bring a risk premium to oil prices.

Under the influence of factors such as the weakening of the Omicron strain, better-than-expected global oil demand, weak supply growth, and intensified geopolitical turmoil in Russia and Ukraine, international oil prices have shown a strong upward trend. At present, the international oil price is still at a high level in the market.

Rising energy prices will increase the cost of stainless steel production. This will increase the difficulty of cost control and inventory management for manufacturers in the stainless steel industry.

Stainless steel has an excellent variety of properties

Stainless steel has an excellent variety of properties. Martensitic stainless steel has the properties of high strength, good workability, high hardness after quenching, and magnetic properties. Austenitic stainless steel has good corrosion resistance, heat resistance, low temperature strength and mechanical properties, good hot workability such as stamping and bending, and non-magnetic properties. It can be used in many household products, auto parts, medical equipment, building materials, chemical, food industry, agriculture, manufacture of ship parts. Ferritic stainless steel with added titanium element, high temperature corrosion resistance and high temperature strength can be used to produce automobile exhaust pipes, heat exchangers, containers and other products that are not heat treated after welding. The wide range of stainless steel products and excellent product performance make stainless steel products have a stable and huge market demand.

Uneven distribution of chromium ore resources

Chromium is an important component of stainless steel, and stainless steel generally contains 10%-30% of chromium. Chromium ore is usually processed into ferrochromium, and more than 90% is used in the production of stainless steel. The global chrome ore resources are relatively abundant, but the distribution is extremely uneven. Chromium ore resources are mainly distributed in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kazakhstan, Finland and Turkey. According to the U.S. Geological Survey's survey report data in February 2019, the four countries with the highest chromium production in 2017 were South Africa, Kazakhstan, India and Turkey, which together accounted for 85% of the world's total production that year. More than 50% of stainless steel products come from China. Due to the impact of reserves or mining costs, the supply of chromium resources in China is difficult to meet domestic demand, making imported chromium ore the main source to meet the demand for stainless steel smelting. Therefore, changes in the policies or production volume of chrome ore in South Africa, Kazakhstan and other countries will also greatly affect the development of the stainless steel industry.

Region Overview:

In 2021, the share of the Stainless Steel market in Asia Pacific stood at 69.21%.

Company Overview:

Qingtuo Group, Shanxi Taigang Stainless Steel, Outokumpu were the top 3 players in the Stainless Steel market in 2022, taking up a market share of 32.47% together.

Qingtuo Group

Tsingshan is focusing on stainless steel production. Main products: stainless steel ingot, bar, rod, plate, wire, pipe and other products, which are widely used in petroleum, chemical industry, machinery, electric power, automobile, shipbuilding, food, pharmaceutical, decoration and other fields.

Shanxi Taigang Stainless Steel

The company has formed a product cluster focusing on stainless steel, cold-rolled silicon steel, and high-strength and tough series steel. Stainless steel products cover a full range of plate and strip line pipes, ultra-wide, ultra-thick and ultra-thin limit specifications, nib steel, hand-tear steel, nuclear power steel, railway steel, duplex stainless steel, high-grade silicon steel for new energy vehicles and other products.

Segmentation Overview:

By type, 300 Series segment accounted for the largest share of market in 2021.

Application Overview:

The market's largest segment by application is the segment Machinery, with a market share of 36.07% in 2021.

Key Companies in the global Stainless Steel market covered in Chapter 3:

Jindal Stainless
NSSC
Beibu Gulf New Material
Outokumpu
Posco
Henan JINHUI Stainless Indutrial Group Co., Ltd.
Aperam
Baosteel Desheng Stainless Steel
Qingtuo Group
Angang Lianzhong Stainless Steel Corporation
Shanxi Taigang Stainless Steel
Acerinox

In Chapter 4 and Chapter 14.2, on the basis of types, the Stainless Steel market from 2018 to 2029 is primarily split into:

200 Series
300 Series
400 Series
500 Series
600 Series

In Chapter 5 and Chapter 14.3, on the basis of Downstream Industry, the Stainless Steel market from 2018 to 2029 covers:

Construction
Home Appliance
Elevator
Automotive
Machinery
Others

Geographically, the detailed analysis of consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate, historic and forecast (2018-2029) of the following regions are covered in Chapter 8 to Chapter 14:

North America (United States, Canada)
Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, Netherlands, Turkey, Switzerland, Sweden)
Asia Pacific (China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia)
Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina)
Middle East & Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, South Africa)