Recently, driven by multiple factors such as increased infrastructure investment, expansion of the new energy industry and upgrading of manufacturing, the non-alloy drawn steel wire industry has shown development characteristics of "accelerated technological breakthroughs, optimized market structure and deepened green transformation". As a fundamental category in the field of metal products, its application has extended from traditional construction to high-end fields such as new energy vehicles and medical devices. Data shows that the market size of steel wire in China reached 285 billion yuan in 2024 and is expected to exceed 320 billion yuan in 2025. Among them, non-alloy drawn steel wire contributes the core increment, with a compound annual growth rate maintained at around 7.5%.
Technological innovation has become the core engine for industry breakthroughs, with green processes and intelligent production running in parallel. Benxi Steel's Plate and Special Steel Division has innovatively adopted an ecological electric furnace scrap steel recycling process, using high-purity automotive plate scrap steel as raw material to produce high-end steel wire, achieving a 42% reduction in energy consumption per ton of steel and a 67% reduction in carbon emissions, thus establishing a green closed loop of "scrap steel - high-quality steel wire". The intelligent transformation has restructured the production model. Zhongtian Steel's Huai 'an base has built a full-process intelligent factory. Through 5G+ industrial optical fiber ring network, over 2,000 pieces of equipment are interconnected in real time. A single production line can complete the entire process of steel wire drawing in 28 seconds, reducing labor costs by 50%. The traceability time for quality issues has been shortened from 3 days to 5 minutes. Baosteel Metal's Nanjing base has integrated digital twin technology, reducing unit energy consumption to 420kWh per ton, a 22% decrease compared to traditional processes. The products have successfully entered the new energy vehicle supply chain.
The market demand structure has shown a significant upgrade, with the high-end sector becoming the main driver of growth. The demand in the new energy vehicle sector has exploded. This sector alone has brought an average annual increase of 420,000 tons for high-strength non-alloy steel wire. The tire ring steel wire with a tensile strength of 2,200 megapascals from Leida Steel Cord has entered the supply chain of international tire enterprises such as Cooper. In the infrastructure sector, the construction of ultra-high voltage and offshore wind power has driven the demand for corrosion-resistant steel wires. The demand for galvanized steel wires used in transmission towers is expected to increase from 780,000 tons in 2022 to 1.15 million tons in 2025, with an average annual growth rate of 13.8%. Meanwhile, the consumer electronics and medical fields have opened up new Spaces. The demand for micron-sized steel wire is expected to exceed 8,000 tons by 2025, and the market size of precision steel wire for coronary stents is projected to reach 4.7 billion yuan.
The competitive landscape of the industry has been continuously optimized, and the export market has performed outstandingly. By 2025, the combined market share of the top five enterprises in the industry will reach 68%, an increase of 7 percentage points compared to 2022. The scale effect will make the production costs of leading enterprises 12% to 15% lower than those of small and medium-sized enterprises. In terms of exports, China has become a core global supplier of steel wire. The export volume is expected to increase by 12% to 4.8 million tons in 2025, and infrastructure projects along the "Belt and Road" have become the main incremental market. The rubber hose steel wire of Jiangsu Naisi New Materials has recently been sent to Italy, marking the accelerated integration of domestic high-end products into the global supply chain.
The industry's development still faces challenges such as fluctuations in raw material prices and rising environmental protection costs, but green circular technologies are effectively offsetting these pressures. In 2024, the price of wire rods rose by 18% year-on-year, but the recycling rate of scrap steel increased to 92%. Combined with low-carbon processes such as hydrogen-based reduction, the carbon footprint per unit product decreased significantly. In the future, as the domestic production rate of high-end products advances from 32% to 40%, the non-alloy drawn steel wire industry will achieve a fundamental leap from scale expansion to quality and efficiency under the dual drive of technological innovation and green transformation.