News Release
Production Record and Plan for Copper Strip Products (3rd quarter, 2016)
January 20, 2016
Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. announced the status of the recovery in production volumes of copper strip products, for which integrated production was restarted in January last year. Furukawa Electric expressed to continue to implement steady operation and aim to become a "manufacturer that meets its responsibilities as a partner".
Quarterly trends in production volumes for copper strip products
Content
The suspension of integrated production as a result of the snow damage of February 2014 caused production volumes of copper strip products to fall around 60% compared to the level prior to the snow damage. However, since the resumption of integrated production in January 2015, production volumes have recovered to 73% during the first quarter, 81% during the second quarter and 85% during the third quarter of the current fiscal yearr, even within that market is shrinking, compared with production prior to the snow damage.
Although we cannot be optimistic about future trends in demand in the infrastructure, automobile, and electronic material markets, we plan to reach a level of production volume in the fourth quarter 89% of that achieved prior to the snow damage, through providing customer support/logistics, expanding sales to foreign markets focusing on Asia, and accelerating sales expansion of pure copper-related products. With regard to pure copper-related products, we recently improved our facilities to support heavy metal sheets and expanded our manufacturing scope. This allows us to handle heavy and long metal sheets.
Moving forward, we will make every effort to overtake as soon as possible the production volume achieved prior to the snow damage, by making full use of our strengths in such areas as oxygen-free copper and original copper alloys (with a focus on the infrastructure and automotive markets) and by working to expand sales of new products such as EFTEC-550.
About Furukawa Electric Group
Furukawa Electric (TSE; 5801, ISIN; JP3827200001) Group started business in 1884, when its copper-smelting facility and wire manufacturing factory was established. Since then Furukawa Electric has become pioneers in the latest technologies by addressing diverse technological issues.
Furukawa Electric has released products in a number of areas, including telecommunications, electronics, automobiles, and construction, with the three types of materials it works with at their core, namely, optics, plastics, and metals. Many of these products have attained the top global market share, and all of its products have contributed to society in numerous business areas. Furukawa Electric reported consolidated revenues of JPY 867.8 billion (approximately USD 8.2B) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2015.
