Copper Strip Industry Sees Modest Decline Amid High Prices and Off-Season Pressure
The copper strip industry saw its comprehensive operating rate drop to 73.39% in August 2026, down from 74.54% in July but up 7.51 percentage points year-on-year. Large-sized enterprises maintained an operating rate of 83.22%, while medium-sized and small-sized enterprises operated at 55.46% and 64.95%, respectively.
The industry was pressured by high copper prices and the traditional consumption off-season, leading to a modest decline in the operating rate. However, end-user demand from computing power, energy storage, new energy supporting industries, transformers, and integrated circuits remained strong, providing rigid support for copper strip.
Purple copper strip demonstrated an 'off-season not weak' pattern, with enterprises relying on orders booked earlier to maintain production levels. Alloy strip downstream demand performed impressively, while brass strip and bronze strip faced intrinsically weak off-season end-user demand due to tight supply of invoice-bearing scrap copper as raw material.
The industry's inventory levels returned to a reasonable range in August, with finished goods inventory days standing at 5.49 days. SMM forecasts the comprehensive operating rate of the copper strip industry in September at 73.54%, up 0.15 percentage points month-on-month and up 7.52 percentage points year-on-year.