Operating rates of copper wire and cable producers edged up WoW this week, while high copper prices weighed on order performance. [SMM Wire and Cable Market Weekly Review]

      This week (October 17–October 23), the SMM copper wire and cable enterprise operating rate was 62.34%, up 0.43 percentage points WoW, but down 14.22 percentage points YoY. Overall operations remained stable. Enterprises mainly focused on executing the deliverable portions of existing orders, while the pace of new orders generally slowed down. Market demand for new orders remained persistently sluggish; at current copper price levels, orders that align with enterprises' willingness to accept new business were scarce. Most companies were forced to postpone previously planned sales promotions and annual production and sales push plans due to high copper prices. By sector, the State Grid released some scattered orders this week, but the overall scale was limited and primarily consisted of just-in-time procurement. In the automotive wiring harness sector, which had previously shown relative stability, new orders were also suppressed by high copper prices. On inventory, due to insufficient new orders, enterprises maintained only just-in-time procurement. The raw material inventory/output ratio fell 1.78 percentage points WoW to 13,500 mt. Enterprises continued to slow their production pace, focusing on producing to meet sales. The finished product inventory/output ratio decreased 2.84 percentage points WoW to 20,165 mt. Looking ahead to next week, as copper prices are expected to continue fluctuating at highs, it will be difficult for enterprises to further accelerate their production pace. Therefore, SMM expects the copper wire and cable enterprise operating rate to edge down to 61.89% next week (October 24–October 30).