Price trend

Last week, the hot coil futures market fluctuated upwards, and the prices of spot galvanized sheet and coil market merchants fluctuated. Market merchants mainly focused on selling and reducing inventory to recover funds. In the middle and later stages of the week, the futures market rose, and the spot market prices adjusted slightly. After the rise, trading was slightly cautious, and under the off-season effect, traders mainly focused on shipping. According to the Commodity Market Analysis System of SunSirs, as of July 18th, the average price of galvanized sheet and coil in the domestic market was 4,095.00 RMB/ton, slightly up 0.43% compared to the beginning of the week.

Analysis review

Fundamentals: Last week, the production capacity utilization rate of galvanized sheet and coil sample production enterprises had slightly declined. Some production enterprises had also chosen to shut down their production lines for maintenance in June and July, but there had not been a large-scale shutdown. Short term maintenance was also aimed at reducing supply pressure in some markets to support prices from continuing to decline. According to the latest data obtained by SunSirs, the overall production rate of galvanized sheet last week was 80.95%; The capacity utilization rate was 62.15%, a decrease of 0.22% from last week’s previous week; The weekly output was 886,500 tons, a decrease of 0.31 tons from last week’s previous week; The inventory of steel mills was 465,700 tons, a decrease of 0.1 million tons from last week’s previous week.

In terms of steel mills, Shougang issued an August ordering policy last week, in which the ordering price of galvanized sheets and coils increased by 100 RMB/ton compared to the previous period.

In terms of mentality, it is understood that the order prices of steel mills and the futures market had risen, and there was less speculative demand in the market. The main focus was still on basic needs, and businesses were cautious and observing the future market situation.

Industry News: According to the latest data from the General Administration of Customs, China exported 4.59 million air conditioners in June 2025, a year-on-year decrease of 25.1%; From January to June, the cumulative export volume was 41.05 million units, a year-on-year increase of 6.8%. In June, 6.87 million refrigerators were exported, a year-on-year decrease of 7.8%; From January to June, the cumulative export volume was 40.51 million units, a year-on-year increase of 1.8%. In June, 2.85 million washing machines were exported, a year-on-year increase of 4.6%; From January to June, the cumulative export volume was 16.84 million units, a year-on-year increase of 3.9%. In June, 7.81 million LCD TVs were exported, a year-on-year decrease of 14.3%; From January to June, the cumulative export volume was 48.53 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 2.5%.

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the national air conditioning production in June 2025 was 28.383 million units, a year-on-year increase of 3.0%; The cumulative production from January to June was 163.296 million units, a year-on-year increase of 5.5%. From the data of different provinces and cities, Guangdong ranked first with a production of 55.3146 million units from January to June 2025; Zhejiang's production of 17.2656 million units ranked second; Anhui ranked third in terms of production of 16.5248 million units.

Market outlook

On the one hand, the rise in raw material prices drove the improvement of the fundamentals of the cold system. On the other hand, there was little change in downstream demand, and the sustainability of price increases needed to be verified. SunSirs expects that the price of galvanized steel coils may fluctuate up and down due to fluctuations in the futures market before the supply-demand contradiction is fully reconciled.

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