Showa Denko to Raise High Purity Aluminium Foil by 7-15%

Showa Denko announced on Wednesday the firm increases the rolling charge by 7-15% or 20-100 yen per kilogram for certain foil products of high purity aluminium for capacitor. The firm starts negotiations with the users to realize the first hike in 4 and half years from October 1 shipment.The high purity aluminium foil demand increases for information technology related products including flat panel television and cell phone. Showa Denko tries to increase the output by shortening maintenance outage and increasing human power with holiday working in order to meet the strong demand. However, the firm cannot meet all of the demand despite of the output increase effort. Price of high grade aluminium ingot increases more than commodity grade market. The firm is suffered from the higher raw materials cost including heavy oil for energy and subsidiary materials. The firm tried to improve the profitability through own effort including cost cutting and better operation efficiency. However, the firm decided the price hike to keep the stable supply operation with better profitability.