POSCO Named No.1 Steelmaker in World in Terms of Competitiveness

POSCO, the world's fifth largest steelmaker in terms of steel production, was ranked first in terms of competitiveness for the 10th consecutive year. In particular, POSCO led steelmakers in high value-added products, processing cost, and technology innovation.

World Steel Dynamics (WSD), the world's leading steel analysis institution, selected POSCO as the world's most competitive steelmaker at the Steel Success Strategies 2019 meeting held in New York for three days from June 17 (local time), POSCO said on June 19. The Korean steelmaker was followed by Nucor of the United States, Voest Alpine of Austria, Severstal of Russia and NSSMC of Japan.

Established in 1999, WSD is an authoritative organization analyzing the global steel industry. Each year, WSD assesses a total of 34 steel mills around the world in terms of 23 items, and ranks them in terms of their competitiveness. The evaluation is based on data submitted by each steelmaker and data and materials published outside.

POSCO achieved the highest scores in seven categories including high-value-added products, processing cost, technology innovation, human resources, development of new growth business, investment in the environment, and national risk factor. Overall, it came in first with 8.35 points out of 10.

POSCO increased the proportion of high-value-added products in total sales to 29.7 percent last year, up 4 percentage points from the previous year, by actively responding to customers' global projects and providing solutions. A representative product is Giga Steel, a next-generation steel plate capable of withstanding a load of 100 kg or heavier per square millimeter. The product features high tensile strength. That is to say, a 10-cm-long and 15-cm-wide palm-sized Giga Steel plate can stand up to 1,500 units of one-ton compact cars.

In addition, POSCO is strengthening new growth engines to complement its business portfolio lopsided towards steel products and boost profitability.

With respect to technology development, POSCO is strengthening its market dominance by developing high manganese steel for energy, earthquake-proof construction steel products, advanced non-oriented electric steel sheets for electric vehicles, and coated steel plates with strong corrosion resistance.