Nippon Steel Raises Share of Hot Rolled Sheet in F2005

Japanese hot rolled sheet steel output decreased by 7.1% to 43.93 million tonnes in fiscal 2005 from fiscal 2004 due to lower output by all makers. Nippon Steel’s share increased with relative lower output reduction while share of JFE Steel and Sumitomo Metal Industries decreased due to the higher reduction. Tokyo Steel Manufacturing reduced the output by 37.3% and Nakayama Steel Works reduced the output by 88.5%. Their share decreased to 2.1% and 0.2% respectively. The no.1 maker of Nippon Steel had 4.6 percentage points of higher share than the no.2 maker of JFE Steel in fiscal 2005, which expanded from 1.8 points of gap in fiscal 2004. Tokyo Steel and Nakayama Steel followed the 5 major integrated steel as fiscal 2004. Nippon Steel decreased the output by 0.6% and increased the share by 2.5 points to 38.8% in fiscal 2005 from fiscal 2004. JFE Steel reduced the output by 7.9% and the share by 0.3 points to 34.2%. Sumitomo Metals reduced the output by 16.7%, which was the widest reduction in the 5 major steels, and the firm’s share decreased by 1.3 points to 11.4%. With wide output reduction, the combined share of Tokyo Steel and Nakayama Steel decreased to 2.3% in fiscal 2005 from 4.6% in fiscal 2004. The output reduction was 8.7% for Kobe Steel, 7.9% for JFE Steel, 3.8% for Nisshin Steel and 0.6% for Nippon Steel.