SSAB Special Steels

SSAB Special Steels is the global leader in high-strength steels and is represented in markets in Europe, the Americas, APAC, the Middle East and Africa. About 50% of sales are in Europe and 20% in North America. SSAB defines the special steel market as hot-rolled products with a yield strength of 690 MPa and above. The total market is estimated to be around 5 million tonnes and, since demand grows structurally, it therefore outperforms demand growth for standard steel.

Requirements and demand for improved material and energy efficiency, as well as for productivity, are important drivers leading to the growing use of high-strength steels, which provide advantages in the form of stronger, lighter and more durable steel solutions. The penetration of high-strength steels is increasing in all markets, as customers upgrade their steel usage from standard to high-strength steels. In emerging markets, including Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia, where the use of high-strength steels is still relatively low, the market potential for high-strength steels is even higher than in mature markets like Europe and North America.

SSAB Special Steels aims to strengthen its leading position in high-strength steels as well as in related value-added services. The market for high-strength steels has to a large extent been driven by SSAB. Since 2000, SSAB’s shipments have increased by an average of around 8% a year, outperforming the general steel market. Structural growth is generated by the manufacturers’ need for higher productivity and better sustainability performance in machinery and equipment. Upgrading components to more advanced steel enables weight reduction and extended service life.

Development of new products and applications is often done in close cooperation with customers. As early as possible in the development of a new product – be it a tipper, a chute or a crane – SSAB’s engineers work together with the customer in developing solutions that best utilize the properties of each steel grade.

With an estimated market share of 25%, SSAB is the largest producer in the global market for high-strength steels. There is a large number of competitors with relatively small market shares and SSAB sells roughly 3 times more in terms of volume than its closest competitor. Most competitors focus on sales to service centers and large OEMs in selected markets. Apart from those segments, SSAB’s unique global sales network enables it also to reach small and mid-size customers in all corners of the world. This network includes own stock locations, local sales force as well as technical support. 

To further develop the channels to the market, SSAB Special Steels is expanding the Hardox^® Wearparts network as well as SSAB Services. Hardox^® Wearparts is a network of mainly independent companies offering wear parts and just-in-time repair services to end-users in the local aftermarket in the mining, quarrying, recycling and construction sectors. SSAB Services focuses on providing products and services to machine builders and the after-market business. This strategy allows SSAB to maintain a high service level in smaller and fragmented markets, and also to gain exposure to end-users’ operating expenditures (OPEX), which has a stabilizing effect over the business cycle.

A growing volume of high-strength steels is a key in the overall objective of the SSAB Group to improve the product mix. High-strength products are produced also in the mills of SSAB Americas and SSAB Europe and increasing those volumes means allocating less capacity to standard products. By 2026, when the steel mill in Oxelösund has been converted to an electric arc furnace (EAF) and the production of sponge iron using HYBRIT technology has started, SSAB Special Steels will be able to offer fossil-free premium products.

• Grow shipments by 23% from 1.3 million tonnes in 2019 to 1.6 million during 2022
• SSAB Services is to increase sales to SEK 4.5 billion during 2022 through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions

SSAB Special Steels’ main end customer segments include manufacturers of heavy transport, construction machinery and material handling including mining and recycling. SSAB Special Steels works in close collaboration with large OEMs, as well as with smaller and mid-sized customers through a global organization. Examples of customer applications include booms and chassis for mobile cranes, tipper bodies for trailers, and buckets for construction and mining machinery. We share a goal with our customers to make lighter, stronger end-products with better lifting capacity, higher payloads, longer service life and lower fuel consumption and emissions.

Main customer segments and applications:

• Heavy transport, incl. trailers, trucks, railway transport, agriculture and forestry
• Construction machinery, incl. lifting (dumpers, loaders and cranes)
• Material handling, incl. mining and recycling (crushers, buckets and conveyors