Steel production has long been an important indicator of a country’s manufacturing capacity and industrial strength. Its role in construction, transport, machinery and warfare has made a reliable supply of steel a national priority. In many developed economies, the decline of traditional steel industries remains politically sensitive, and promises to revive production often feature in debates about jobs and economic security. This page examines steel production across regions, countries and companies, alongside production per person. It also explores global growth, steelmaking processes, demand and exports, showing how the industry has shifted towards Asia while remaining essential to economies throughout the world.
Statistics
- Steel production by world region, 2006–2025
- Regional steel production outside Asia, 2006–2025
- Share of steel production by world region, 2006–2025
- Steel production per capita in ten selected countries, 2015 and 2025
- Top ten countries by crude steel production, 2025
- Top ten steel-producing companies, 2025
- World crude steel production, 2010–2025
- Production growth among the ten largest steelmaking countries, 2025
- Steelmaking processes in selected major producers, 2025
- Apparent steel use in ten major markets, 2025
- Top ten steel-exporting countries, 2025
- Regional production data tables
Steel production by world region, 2006–2025
Global steel production has expanded greatly since the industrial growth of the twentieth century, with the strongest recent contribution coming from Asia. Between the selected 2006 and 2025 observations, Asian crude steel output approximately doubled, from 675 million to 1,353 million tonnes. China’s enormous industry accounts for most of the region’s production, while India has become an increasingly important source of growth.
Europe and North America follow a different pattern. Their combined output is lower in 2025 than in 2006, reflecting the reduced scale of steelmaking in several long-established industrial economies. The Middle East and Africa have expanded from much smaller starting points, although neither approaches Asia’s volume. These changes preserve the original page’s central theme: the geographical centre of steel production has shifted eastwards, while declining domestic industries remain politically important in several developed countries.
Sources: Worldsteel Steel Statistical Yearbook 2016, Table 1; Worldsteel Steel Statistical Yearbook 2020, Table 1; World Steel Association: World Steel in Figures 2026, revised 2025 figures.
Selected verified observations: 2006 and 2010 from the 2016 yearbook, 2015 and 2019 from the 2020 yearbook, and 2025 from the 2026 publication. Europe combines EU and other Europe, including Türkiye; Asia excludes the Middle East. Historical CIS includes Ukraine. Figures are published vintages, not a single latest-revised annual series; connecting lines do not provide intervening observations. Rounded regional sums differ slightly from published world totals. The original 1970–2015 table is retained separately as an archive.
Regional steel production outside Asia, 2006–2025
Europe remains the largest producing region outside Asia in this comparison, but its output declined from roughly 236 million tonnes in 2006 to 171 million in 2025. North America also produces less than at the beginning of the period. These changes underline why the future of steelmaking continues to feature in debates about industrial employment, domestic manufacturing capacity and economic security.
The Russia/CIS and Ukraine grouping has also contracted. The original page described the sharp fall following the Soviet Union’s break-up; more recent figures show that production remains vulnerable to further disruption rather than following a continuous recovery. In contrast, Middle Eastern output has risen substantially, reaching approximately 57 million tonnes in 2025. Africa’s production has increased from a lower base, while South America has changed less markedly. The smaller regions therefore have distinct trajectories, which would be obscured by treating all countries outside Asia as one declining bloc.
Sources: Worldsteel Steel Statistical Yearbook 2016, Table 1; Worldsteel Steel Statistical Yearbook 2020, Table 1; World Steel Association: World Steel in Figures 2026, revised 2025 figures.
Selected verified observations: 2006 and 2010 from the 2016 yearbook, 2015 and 2019 from the 2020 yearbook, and 2025 from the 2026 publication. Europe combines EU and other Europe, including Türkiye; Asia excludes the Middle East. Historical CIS includes Ukraine. Figures are published vintages, not a single latest-revised annual series; connecting lines do not provide intervening observations. Rounded regional sums differ slightly from published world totals. The original 1970–2015 table is retained separately as an archive.
Share of steel production by world region, 2006–2025
Asia’s share of the reported regional total rose from approximately fifty-four per cent in 2006 to seventy-three per cent in 2025. The shift is larger than the increase in worldwide output alone would suggest: production has become increasingly concentrated in a region that already contained several major steelmaking economies. China remains the dominant contributor, supported by India, Japan, South Korea and other Asian producers.
Europe’s share fell from nearly nineteen per cent to about nine per cent over the same selected period. North America declined from approximately eleven per cent to six per cent, while the Russia/CIS and Ukraine grouping also lost ground. Middle Eastern production gained share, and Africa’s contribution increased modestly. These movements reveal how global industrial growth can reduce a region’s relative importance even where substantial production remains. Steelmaking has consequently become less evenly distributed, with a much larger proportion of the world’s supply now originating in Asia.
Sources: Worldsteel Steel Statistical Yearbook 2016, Table 1; Worldsteel Steel Statistical Yearbook 2020, Table 1; World Steel Association: World Steel in Figures 2026, revised 2025 figures.
Selected verified observations: 2006 and 2010 from the 2016 yearbook, 2015 and 2019 from the 2020 yearbook, and 2025 from the 2026 publication. Europe combines EU and other Europe, including Türkiye; Asia excludes the Middle East. Historical CIS includes Ukraine. Figures are published vintages, not a single latest-revised annual series; connecting lines do not provide intervening observations. Rounded regional sums differ slightly from published world totals. The original 1970–2015 table is retained separately as an archive. Shares use the sum of the eight reported regions in each observation, ensuring that displayed categories total 100%.
Steel production per capita in ten selected countries, 2015 and 2025
South Korea remains the largest steel producer per resident among these ten selected countries, at about 1.2 tonnes per person in 2025. Its extensive steel industry supplies domestic manufacturing and overseas markets, producing far more steel relative to its population than the United States or India. China and Japan also have high production per resident, although their relative positions have changed as Chinese output expanded and Japanese production declined.
India’s total production has grown strongly, but its enormous population keeps output per resident comparatively low. Türkiye has also increased production per person since 2015, while Germany, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom have lower values. The United Kingdom’s decline is especially pronounced in this comparison. These differences retain the original contrast between large national totals and production intensity: a country can be a major producer in absolute terms without matching the per-capita output of smaller, highly industrialised economies.
Sources: Worldsteel Steel Statistical Yearbook 2016, Table 1; Worldsteel Steel Statistical Yearbook 2020, Table 1; World Steel Association: World Steel in Figures 2026, revised 2025 figures; World Bank: resident populations, 2015 and 2025.
Calculated from same-year crude steel production and World Bank population. Production, not consumption. Corrects the original misaligned 2010 values and implausible 2015 South Korean figure. Russia replaces the misleading post-Soviet “Soviet Union” label. Selected ten countries are the original selection using present-day Russia; Iran is not part of this per-capita comparison.
Top ten countries by crude steel production, 2025
China produced 960.8 million tonnes of crude steel in 2025, accounting for approximately fifty-two per cent of the world total. Its output was almost six times India’s, despite India’s rapid expansion. India firmly holds second place, while the United States moved ahead of Japan to become the third-largest producer in the revised annual figures.
Russia and South Korea follow, with Türkiye, Germany, Brazil and Iran completing the top ten. The ranking reflects both the continued dominance of Asian producers and the importance of established steelmaking economies elsewhere. India’s growth contrasts with declining output in China, Japan and Germany during 2025. These different movements show that the industry’s geographical shift is continuing within Asia as well as between regions. China remains overwhelmingly dominant, but the fastest expansion among the largest producers is now taking place in India.
Sources: World Steel Association: World Steel in Figures 2026, revised 2025 figures.
Revised full-year 2025 crude steel figures from the June 2026 publication, replacing the earlier January estimates. Million tonnes, not finished steel use. No full-year 2026 figures are asserted.
Top ten steel-producing companies, 2025
China Baowu Group leads the company ranking with approximately 125 million tonnes of crude steel in 2025. Its output is almost double ArcelorMittal’s and exceeds the total national production of every country except China and India. The gap illustrates the extraordinary scale reached by the largest Chinese steel groups.
Nippon Steel and Ansteel occupy third and fourth places with closely matched totals of about 58 million tonnes. Chinese groups dominate much of the remaining top ten, alongside South Korea’s POSCO Holdings and India’s Tata Steel Group. Company rankings also reflect consolidation and ownership changes: Nippon Steel’s 2025 group figure includes United States Steel Corporation. The largest producers therefore operate within an industry shaped by both national industrial development and international corporate expansion. A company’s position can change through acquisitions as well as through greater output from its existing plants.
Sources: World Steel Association: World Steel in Figures 2026, revised 2025 figures.
Corrects the original 2025-labelled chart, whose values were the 2024 ranking. Worldsteel company ownership at 31 December 2025; majority subsidiaries generally included fully and specified minority interests proportionally. Company output can cross national borders and should not be assigned wholly to its headquarters country.
World crude steel production, 2010–2025
Worldwide crude steel production has increased almost tenfold since 1950, rising from 189 million tonnes to roughly 1.85 billion tonnes in 2025. Growth during the decades after the Second World War accompanied industrial development, urbanisation and the expansion of transport and construction. Production subsequently grew much more slowly during parts of the 1980s and 1990s, before accelerating again after 2000.
The twenty-first-century expansion was closely associated with China’s industrial growth and enormous demand for buildings, infrastructure and manufactured goods. World output reached a peak of about 1.96 billion tonnes in 2021, but has remained below that level since. Production fell again in 2025, even as some countries expanded their industries. The long-term record therefore combines a dramatic increase in the importance of steel with shorter periods of stagnation and decline, reflecting changes in investment, economic activity and the location of manufacturing.
Sources: World Steel Association: World Steel in Figures 2026, revised 2025 figures.
Annual observations, 2010–2025; the analysis also gives the source’s longer-term 1950 comparison. Source publishes rounded million tonnes here; latest detailed 2025 total is 1,848.9 Mt. This global series is separate from the historical regional publication vintages.
Production growth among the ten largest steelmaking countries, 2025
India recorded the strongest production growth among the ten largest steelmaking countries, increasing output by about ten per cent in 2025. Its additional 15.5 million tonnes underline its expanding role in the global industry. Türkiye, the United States and Iran also grew, while most of the other countries in this group produced less steel than in 2024.
Germany experienced the largest percentage decline among these ten producers, at nearly nine per cent. China’s decrease of approximately four per cent was smaller proportionally but much larger in tonnage because of its enormous industry. Japan and Russia also contracted, and South Korea and Brazil recorded more modest falls. These contrasts explain why global production declined despite India’s strong performance: growth in several important markets was insufficient to offset reductions elsewhere. The industry’s recent direction is consequently uneven, rather than a uniform increase or decrease across all major producers.
Sources: World Steel Association: World Steel in Figures 2026, revised 2025 figures.
Percentage changes recalculated from the revised published 2024 and 2025 figures, each rounded to 0.1 Mt. They can differ from growth rates in the preliminary January press release. Ranking restricted to the ten largest producers in 2025.
Steelmaking processes in selected major producers, 2025
China, Japan and South Korea produce most of their steel through oxygen steelmaking, the process commonly associated with integrated blast-furnace plants. China’s oxygen share is almost ninety per cent, reflecting the structure of the world’s largest steel industry. Germany also relies mainly on this route, although electric steelmaking contributes a substantial minority.
The United States and Türkiye present a different pattern, with electric processes supplying more than seventy per cent of output. Italy and Iran have even higher electric shares. Electric furnaces can use scrap steel and directly reduced iron, giving them a different raw-material base from conventional integrated plants. These contrasts matter for investment, recycling and efforts to reduce emissions. Electricity supply and the materials charged into furnaces strongly influence environmental performance, so a high electric share alone does not establish that a country’s steel is produced with low emissions.
Sources: World Steel Association: World Steel in Figures 2026, revised 2025 figures.
Selected countries whose published oxygen and electric percentages sum to 100%. Source estimates some process shares, including China, the United States, Italy and Iran. Electric is the publication’s category; it is not a renewable-energy share.
Apparent steel use in ten major markets, 2025
China remains the largest steel market, with apparent use of approximately 796 million tonnes in 2025. However, its demand has fallen substantially from the 2021 level of about 954 million tonnes. India follows a different trajectory: apparent steel use rose from roughly 106 million tonnes in 2021 to almost 160 million in 2025, strengthening its position as the second-largest market.
The United States remains a major consumer, while Japan and South Korea have lower steel use than earlier in the decade. Türkiye’s market has expanded, supported by demand for construction and manufactured products. These movements help explain changing conditions for producers: rising output is easier to sustain where domestic demand is also growing, while weaker consumption increases the importance of export markets. The contrast between China and India is especially significant because their industries and markets are large enough to influence the balance of global steel supply and demand.
Sources: World Steel Association: World Steel in Figures 2026, revised 2025 figures.
Selected ten leading national markets from the published table, which does not list every country separately; not a verified exhaustive world top ten. Apparent use measures supply of finished steel products to a market, not crude steel output or direct household consumption. No subtraction of crude output and finished use is used to infer exports.
Top ten steel-exporting countries, 2025
China is by far the largest steel-exporting country, shipping approximately 134 million tonnes of steel products in 2025. Its exports exceed those of Japan, South Korea and Germany combined. This international reach means changes in Chinese supply influence steel markets well beyond its domestic economy, particularly when local demand weakens.
Japan and South Korea remain important exporters despite producing much less crude steel than China. European producers also feature prominently, with Germany, Belgium and Italy among the leading countries. Türkiye, Russia, Iran and Indonesia complete this national top ten. Export rankings differ from production rankings because some major producers, including India and the United States, supply very large domestic markets. Belgium’s position also demonstrates the importance of cross-border trade within an integrated regional economy. Steel production is geographically concentrated, but international shipments connect producers with customers across a much wider range of countries.
Sources: World Steel Association: World Steel in Figures 2026, revised 2025 figures.
Country-only ranking from the source: the EU aggregate is omitted to avoid mixing a bloc with its members. Individual EU country exports include intra-EU trade. Broad steel-product definition includes semi-finished material, tubes, wire and other products. Direct exports do not include steel embodied in manufactured goods.
Regional production data tables
Verified selected observations, 2006–2025. Values are thousand tonnes. Europe includes Türkiye; Asia excludes the Middle East. Click a column heading to sort.
| Year | Asia | Europe (incl. Türkiye) | Russia/CIS + Ukraine | North America | Middle East | South America | Africa | Oceania | Sum of reported regions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | 675226 | 235510 | 119908 | 131421 | 15376 | 45269 | 18695 | 8691 | 1250096 |
| 2010 | 918449 | 206561 | 108200 | 111562 | 20000 | 43888 | 16624 | 8149 | 1433433 |
| 2015 | 1117739 | 202016 | 101552 | 110938 | 29579 | 43900 | 13701 | 5717 | 1625142 |
| 2019 | 1349427 | 195986 | 100759 | 119683 | 44310 | 41656 | 17175 | 6160 | 1875156 |
| 2025 | 1353400 | 170600 | 83200 | 107400 | 57300 | 41500 | 29800 | 5800 | 1849000 |
Sources: Worldsteel yearbooks 2016 and 2020, and World Steel in Figures 2026. Published vintages and rounded totals; see source notes above.
Original regional production archive, 1970–2015
The original page’s historical table is retained below. These are archived figures rather than a newly verified continuous series. Its regional boundaries differ from the updated comparisons, including Türkiye within West Asia. The USSR label applies before its dissolution; subsequent entries represent the CIS grouping. Click a column heading to sort.
| Year | Western Europe | Eastern Europe | USSR / CIS | North America | Latin America | Africa | West Asia | Asia | Oceania | Original total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | 163382 | 36885 | 115886 | 130507 | 13181 | 5332 | 1851 | 121410 | 6996 | 595430 |
| 1975 | 156540 | 47734 | 141325 | 118841 | 18585 | 7802 | 2884 | 143666 | 8054 | 645431 |
| 1980 | 162483 | 57553 | 147931 | 117357 | 29204 | 11503 | 3762 | 177969 | 7819 | 715581 |
| 1985 | 157437 | 56029 | 154653 | 94705 | 36219 | 12243 | 7539 | 193242 | 6836 | 718903 |
| 1990 | 155460 | 47165 | 154436 | 102007 | 38725 | 13298 | 13507 | 238466 | 7395 | 770459 |
| 1995 | 157044 | 32838 | 79085 | 109606 | 47754 | 13690 | 21315 | 279599 | 9302 | 750233 |
| 2000 | 165037 | 31039 | 98987 | 118398 | 56064 | 13827 | 25105 | 333154 | 7832 | 849443 |
| 2005 | 166975 | 32612 | 113894 | 110224 | 62723 | 17950 | 36222 | 595533 | 8646 | 1144779 |
| 2010 | 149513 | 27905 | 108855 | 93504 | 61946 | 16624 | 49143 | 918449 | 8149 | 1434088 |
| 2015 | 142862 | 27514 | 101552 | 91318 | 63518 | 13701 | 60946 | 1112873 | 5717 | 1620001 |
Source: original Steel Production page, historically attributed to the World Steel Association. Archived source figures have not all been independently reverified.