The price of copper has risen to a 10-year high, how does the home appliance industry respond?
After the Spring Festival, it is generally the off-season for the home appliance industry. The strange thing is that recently many home appliance brands have seen price increases. Among them, Midea Refrigerator announced that the price of Midea refrigerators will increase by 10% to 15% from March 1.
Subsequently, Dong Mingzhu said that Gree air-conditioning insisted not to increase prices. But she added another sentence later: If copper prices continue to rise, they may make a decision based on the situation.
The main reason for the price increase of home appliances is the excessively rapid increase in the price of copper materials . Since the low copper price of US$4,371/ton in March 2020 to the high of US$9,617/ton in February this year, copper prices have risen by more than 100%. Spot copper prices in February hit a new high in the past ten years.
At the same time, copper futures in the financial market are also rising all the way. As of 10 pm on March 10, the main Shanghai copper futures contract was reported at 65860 yuan/ton, although it was down from 70,800 yuan/ton in the previous period, the overall trend is still on the rise.
In the global financial market, bulk commodities represented by copper, iron ore powder, and aluminum have also emerged from the "bulk commodity bull market."
Copper is called "industrial bones and bones" and is an important building material as well as a raw material for many alloys. Copper is needed for everything from real estate and infrastructure to computers and mobile phones. For another example, the amount of copper used in the currently popular electric vehicles is more than four times that of fuel vehicles.
According to data from the World Bureau of Metal Statistics, China's demand for refined copper will account for 59% of the global demand for refined copper in 2020, making it the world's largest copper consumer.
The price increase of home appliances we mentioned above is that the price increase of raw materials has been transmitted to consumers at the end of the industry chain. In the middle and upper reaches of the industrial chain, the explosion of a series of raw materials such as copper, plastics, and textile materials has disrupted the production plans of many companies, and many workshop production lines have pressed the pause button for this reason.
In this regard, many research institutions including Goldman Sachs have previously made predictions and adjusted the target price of copper to US$10,000/ton.
Goldman Sachs also predicts that in 2021, copper supply and demand will have the largest deficit in 10 years. Goldman Sachs analyst Nicholas Snowdon said: China's copper demand burst after the Spring Festival, which will result in a "copper supply deficit" and will trigger the next round of rising.
Winland Metal supplies various grades of copper pipes and copper pipe fittings . Copper materials are widely used in various industries. Capillary copper pipes play a significant role in air conditioning, refrigeration, electronics and other industries.
