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Five of the major Japanese electric wire makers, (Furukawa Electric, Hitachi Cable, Fujikura, SWCC Showa Holdings, Mitsubishi Cable Industries Ltd.) have all posted consolidated recurring losses in their business results for FY2008 ended March 2009. All except Sumitomo Electric Industries, which reported lower sales, posted losses due to the dramatic fall in copper price during H2 2008 as well as the downturn in the automotive industry. Their copper inventory valuation losses have reduced their profits significantly. Sluggish demand is reported across a range of automobile related products including copper strip for connectors, winding wire and wiring harness.

It was reported that five leading Japanese copper semis fabricators posted better results for April-December 2010, partly attributed to higher copper prices and a very hot summer. However, profitability in October-December was lower because of slower demand from the automotive and electronics industries as well as inventory adjustment by the end-users.

Japanese Furukawa Electric Co. plans to begin exporting copper power cable from its Shenyang production plant in China to the US and Europe from September 2011. So far, the company has been providing cables for the Chinese market only. It was reported that the quality of cables has improved sufficiently to be exported to industrialised countries. The company hopes to achieve annual sales of US$125M to industrialised countries in the next five years. The company expects strong demand from sustainable sources of energy.

"Superconducting magnets, particularly those used in science, research, and technology development and healthcare applications, dominate the market. The healthcare segment is presently the largest market for superconducting applications, accounting for 63% of the global market in 2013 led by the superconducting magnets used in MRI scanners. However, superconducting electrical equipment segment (e.g., transformers, generators, motors, fault current limiters (FCLs), power storage, current leads, and cable) is expected to capture over 36% of the market by 2019. Superconducting electronics are also anticipated to gain significant market share over the next five years"

The electric vehicle recycled battery materials market size is projected to grow at an impressive rate over the next five years to reach US$ 300.8 million by 2025.

When Southern California Edison unveiled plans to install 250 megawatts' worth of solar panels on warehouse roofs back in March, it was hailed as a ground-breaking move. In one fell swoop, the giant utility would cut the cost of photovoltaic power, expand the solar market and kick-start efforts to transform untold acres of sun-baked commercial roof space into mini-power plants. There's just one problem: the solar industry is fighting the billion-dollar plan. In briefs filed with the California Public Utilities Commission, solar companies, industry trade groups and consumer advocates argue that allowing a utility to own and operate such massive green megawattage will crowd out competitors who can't hope to compete with a project financed by Edison's ratepayers. (In California, shareholders of investor-owned utilities are guaranteed a rate of return for approved projects, while utility customers bear a portion of the costs in the form of higher rates.) The five-year plan "would establish SCE as the monopoly developer of commercial-scale distributed solar in its service territory," wrote Arno Harris, CEO of Recurrent Energy, a San Francisco company that sells solar electricity to commercial customers. "This would irreparably impair the development of a competitive solar industry."

An official from SDI La Farga LLC's said on 11th December that the company is producing limited amounts of wirerod at its new US $39M plant in New Haven, Indiana. The new facility, a joint venture between Spain's La Farga Group and Steel Dynamics Inc, produces wirerod from number 2 scrap copper rather than cathode. The company official said "we've produced quality rod and are in the process of getting approval of customers and we have done so with several customers." He added that plant officials are "waiting for more customer orders to start producing more".

Anhui Jincheng, the Shanghai-listed producer of copper PSSF, said on 26th March that it produced 93,872t of copper PSSF in 2012, a 13% y-o-y increase from 2011. Despite the increase in output, the company made a net loss of RMB57M in 2012 from a profit of RMB24M in 2011 (loss of US$9M from a profit of US$3.8M). Remarking on the results the company said that "uncertainties in the global economy, the euro debt crisis, plus the weak Chinese economy, has negatively impacted demand by the downstream processing sector last year."

Talking at the annual CESCO/CRU World Copper Conference, CRU Principal Consultant Vivienne Lloyd said that up to 2Mt of copper demand could be lost over the next five years due to substitution and consolidation amongst Chinese semis producers. Lloyd said that the areas under the greatest threat from substitution are the automotive wiring harness sector and the HVAC sector. However, CRU believes that the aluminium/copper price ratio is likely to have peaked in 2012 at around 4:1, and will fall back gradually to 2017 reaching 3:1, which should relieve some of the substitution pressures.