German stockholders’ sales rise slightly in Q3
Germany’s stockholding distributors sold a combined 7.297 million tonnes of steel products in the first nine months of 2025, slightly less than in the corresponding 2024 period.
The average monthly tonnage value in the first quarter was 820,000t, marking an apparent increase from the corresponding 2024 value of 813,000t, Kallanish learns from German distributors’ association Bundesverband Deutscher Stahlhandel (BDS).
However, 2024 was also characterised by relatively strong average sales in the second quarter – 816,000t – while customers were more reserved in Q2 this year, with monthly sales at 784,000t.
Split by product group, the average monthly sales of flat products in Q3, 481,000t, marked an increase from Q2, at 456,000t, after Q1 reached 512,000t. This is a somewhat different dynamic from 2024, when average sales of flat products sank throughout the first three quarters. In the nine months of 2025, 4.347mt of flat products were sold by German stockholders.
For long products, 2.26mt were sold in the first nine months. Sales of “other products”, which include wire rod, totalled 680,000t in the first nine months.
In terms of inventory tonnage, the monthly average in Q3 was 1.865mt, down from Q3 2024 with 1.927mt, which itself was slightly down y-on-y from 1.961mt in 2023.
Christian Koehl Germany
Stockholding: German steel sales, stocks tumble as market weakness persists
Total German steel sales in August dropped by 13% on the month and by 6.8% on the year to 747,487 mt, while steel stocks were down 1.1% on the month and 2.7% on the year to 1,865,093 mt, according to German sales and stocks association BDS (Bundesverband Deutscher Stahlhandel) data published on Sept 22.
In the given period, sales in all categories registered a decrease, the data showed.
In August, sales of long steel products were down by 13% on the month and by 1% on the year to 236,714 mt. Sales of flat steel products dropped by 12% on the month and by 10% on the year to 438,550 mt. Sales of other products also moved down, falling 17% on the month and by 4.1% on the year to 72,223 mt.
Steel stocks
In August, long steel stocks were down by 2.1% on the month, but were up by 4.7% on the year to 647,894 mt.
Stocks of flat steel products went down by 0.1% on the month and by 6% on the year to 1,184,330 mt. Stocks of other steel products were down 18% on the month and by 13% on the year to 32,869 mt.
In August, German steel production continued its steep decline, with crude steel output falling almost 11% year over year to 2.57 million mt, with the data underscoring the persistent headwinds confronting German steelmakers as they navigate a challenging operating environment that has pressured margins and production levels throughout 2025.
Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed Northern European HRC at Eur570/mt EXW Ruhr, stable on the day.
German Steel Distribution: June sales fall 6% year over year
German steel product sales fell 5.8% year over year in June to 782,667 mt, but were up 4.4% from May, data from the German steel stockholders’ association BDS showed July 29.
The majority, or 56.9%, of the sales were from the flat product category at 44,479 mt, down 11.2% year over year, but 1.7% higher month over month.
Long sales increased 5.8% year over year in June to 268,673 mt, and rose 10.5% month over month, the data showed.
The sales total for the first half of 2025 was 4.8 million mt, down 1.8% year over year, with flat sales down 4.8% at 2.9 million mt and long sales up 1.8% at 1.5 million mt.
Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed domestic HRC in Northern Europe at Eur550/mt ($636.12/mt) ex-works Ruhr July 28, down 2% since the start of 2025.
Meanwhile, BDS data showed stocks of German steel products totaled 1.85 million mt in June, slipping 3% year over year and down 0.4% from May.
Flat products comprised 62.35% of total inventories in June at 1.16 million mt, which was 7.6% lower year over year and down 1.5% month over month.
Long products stocks totaled 659,874 mt, or 35.6% of the total inventory, rising 7.1% year over year and up 1.2% from May.
German steel sales decline 5% in April, inventories drop
Germany’s total steel product sales fell 5% month over month and 3% year over year to 820,837 mt in April, BDS data showed May 22. Total inventories also fell 5.5% year over year but rose 1% month over month to 1.905 million mt, the data showed.
Sales
German sales of flat steel products decreased by 9% month over month and 5.6% year over year to 485,257 mt in April. Flat steel products are primarily used in the automotive sector, which is currently in decline due to unfavorable global economic conditions.
According to the latest data published by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association ACEA, new car registrations in the EU declined by 1.9% year over year in Q1 2025.
Domestic passenger car production in April fell 7% year over year to 367,500 units, according to VDA, the German Association of the Automotive Industry. Just over 1.4 million passenger cars were manufactured in Germany in the first four months of the year, up 1% year over year.
Sales of long steel products rose 3.4% month over month and 0.8% year over year to 259,504 mt. This was in line with expectations, as long steel products have generally been performing better since April, driven by demand from the construction sector, which typically picks up this time of the year.
Other steel product sales decreased by 4.7% month over month and rose 1.9% year over year to 76,976 mt.
Steel stocks
The country’s long steel stocks rose 0.5% month over month and 0.2% year over year to 662,764 mt in April. Stocks of flat products fell 8% year over year but rose 1.2% month over month to 1.2 million mt. Other steel product sales fell 14.1% year over year but rose 4.7% month over month to 39.469 mt.
Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed hot-rolled coils at Eur635/mt base ex-works Ruhr on May 20, up from Eur560/mt base ex-works at the beginning of the year. In April, hot-rolled coils stayed in the price range of Eur645-655/mt base ex-works.
German stockholders’ sales remain modest in Q1
Germany’s stockholding distributors sold 2.47 million tonnes of steel in the first quarter, Kallanish learns from distributors’ federation BDS figures.
The tonnage comes close to that of the corresponding 2024 quarter, with a gain of some 4,000 tonnes. This, however, does not compensate for the steeper year-on-year drop seen last year. In the first quarter of 2024, the tonnage dropped around 5’%, compared with Q1 2023.
Still, this year’s Q1 shows some noteworthy deviations in the product groups. Flat products, which make up roughly 60% of sales among Germany’s stockholders, saw a decline by 30,000t to 1.535mt this year.
BDS does not provide explanations for such changes, which may not be caused by any particular factor. While February’s tonnage was down 40,000t y-o-y, March sales were up by the same rate.
Long products, traditionally accounting for some 30% of the total, saw an increase, by a modest 5,000t y-o-y.
A more noteworthy increase occurred in the “other products” category, which gained 30,000t, to a total of 235,000t. The growth hints at increasing volumes of wire rod, a traditionally uncommon product in warehouses of stockholding distributors.
Christian Koehl Germany
German steel stockholders’ sales remain stable in 2024
Germany’s stockholding distributors sold a slightly higher tonnage of steel products in 2024 than a year earlier, according to figures from their federation, BDS.
At 9.435 million tonnes, the volume was fractionally up on 9.434mt in 2023. Monthly volumes appear to have been distributed more evenly in 2024 than 2023. In 2023, March sales of 994,000t were, for example, nearly 190,000t above April’s. December was typically the slowest month in both years, with just over 460,000t sold in each year, Kallanish notes.
Both main product categories, longs and flats, lost tonnages somewhat from 2023 to 2024, while “other products” gained. Long products sales in 2024 totalled 2.828mt and flat products came to 5.766mt.
By contrast, “other products” rose by around 140,000t to 841,000t in 2024. This category encompasses wire rod and other products that are not particularly defined in the statistics.
Christian Koehl Germany
German monthly steel sales rebound from Dec slump
Monthly German steel sales reached 814,862 mt in January, down 0.9% year over year but rebounding 76.3% month over month, data from the German steel stockholders’ association BDS showed Feb. 21.
The month-over-month gain was fuelled primarily by sales of the flat steel product category which increased 80.8% from December to 508,120 mt. Despite the monthly bounce, flat steel sales were 5.1% lower year over year.
Monthly sales of long products were reported at 228,249, up 67.6% monthly and 11.9% year over year.
Other products followed a similar trajectory, increasing 76.3% monthly and 14% year over year to 78,493 mt.
Market participants surveyed by Platts point toward recent news surrounding US tariffs, and upcoming elections in Germany as increasingly bullish factors in the market. Some sources also cited stable fundamentals, arguing that demand drivers have not shifted significantly in recent weeks.
Platts assessed the Northwest European domestic HRC price at Eur605/mt ex-works Ruhr, Feb. 20, stable day over day and up Eur5/mt week over week.
Meanwhile, German steel product stocks totaled 1.895 million mt in January, rising 6.4% year over year and down 0.6% from December.
Flat products made up 63.8% of the total inventories in January at 1.209 million mt, which was 1.1% lower year over year but 8.8% higher month over month.
Long products stocks totaled 651,346 mt in January, or 34.4% of the total inventory, increasing 0.8% year over year and 2% from December.
BDS: German steel sales slump, stocks hit 3-year low as of Dec 2024
German total steel sales product fell 0.59% year over year in December 2024 to 462,264 mt, and down by 40.64% month over month, data from German steel stockholders’ association BDS showed on Jan. 22.
- Total steel sales in Dec 2024 drop 0.59% YOY to 462,264 mt
- Total steel stocks in Dec 2024 decline 3.96%YOY to 1.78 million mt
Last month, sales of the flat steel product category nearly halved to 281,045, down 40.23% from November and 3.05% from the same period in 2023, respectively.
Long sales also dropped to 136,204 mt, down from 143,297 mt in December 2023 and compared to 238,850 mt in November 2023, the data showed.
Other products stood at 45,015 mt in December 2024, down 40.9% year over year and 35.39% month over month.
The BDS data also showed that steel stocks in Germany went down year year over year and month month over month. Total German steel stocks products totalled 1.78 million mt in December 2024, slipping 3.96% compared to the same month of 2023 and down 1.54% from November 2024 to the lowest level since records started in January 2020.
Flat products decreased by 4.64% to 1.11 million mt in December, year over year, and by 2.77% month over month, respectively.
Long products stocks totaled 638,548 mt in December, down 2.10% year over year but up 0.95% month over month. The rest of the stocks under “Others” stood at 30,762 mt in December, down 6.42% compared to December 2023 and down 1.54% relative to November.
In December hot-rolled coil prices in Northern Europe moved sideways from Eur560/mt base ex-works Ruhr to Eur 560/mt ex-works Ruhr on Dec. 30, with prices that moved down by around Eur130/mt in 2024. Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed hot-rolled coil in Northwest Europe at Eur580/mt ex-works Ruhr Jan.21, stable day over day
German stockholders’ sales bottom out in Q3
Germany’s stockholding distributors sold a combined 7.356 million tonnes of steel products in the first nine months of the year, around 10,000t less than in the corresponding 2023 period.
The decline has narrowed since mid-year, when it was still 100,000t versus the first half of 2023, Kallanish learns from German distributors’ association Bundesverband Deutscher Stahlhandel (BDS).
The nine-month average sales volume per month was 812,000t, marking a slight but continuous drop from the first two quarters, at 823,00t and 816,000t, respectively. However, it was higher than the third quarter one year ago, when sales averaged 783,000t.
Split by product group, the average monthly sales of flat products shows a declining trend, at 484,000t in Q3, following 522,000t in Q1 and 495,000t in Q2. Long products actually rose, at 252,000t in Q3, after 233,000t in Q1 and 250,000t in Q2. BDS provides no interpretation for the figures.
A slight increase in sections/beams towards Q3 can be explained by production shortages that triggered a buying rush. However, the increase is even more pronounced for rebar, despite the continued lull in construction.
Still, sales figures are altogether weaker in comparison with 2022, when long products sold 265,000t on average per month.
Miscellaneous other products, such as wire rod, accounted for 78,000 t/month, after 71,000t in Q2.
A comparison of the last month of the respective periods shows that total sales in September 2024 were slightly stronger than 2023, at 812,000t versus 779,000t respectively. Looking further back, September 2022 was again stronger, at 856,000t sold.
In terms of inventory tonnage, the monthly average in Q3 was 1.927mt, slightly down y-o-y, with Q3 2023 at 1.961mt.
Until the end of 2022, monthly average inventory was above 2.18mt, with all months normally above the 2mt mark. Since early 2023, only three months, July 2023, February 2024 and April 2024, have eclipsed that mark, by some 1,000t.
Christian Koehl Germany
Germany: September steel product sales edge up 0.8% on year
German steel product sales edged up 0.8% year on year in September to 785,553 mt, which was down 2% month on month, data from German steel stockholders’ association Bundesverband Deutscher Stahlhandel (BDS) showed Oct. 24.
The majority, or 58.9%, of the sales, were from the flat product category at 462,555 mt, down 6.1% year on year and falling 5.1% month on month, while long sales rose 9% on the year and 2.9% month on month to 245,945 mt, the data showed.
January-September sales totaled 7.4 million mt, just 0.1% lower on the year, with flat sales down 3.4% to 4.5 million mt and long sales up 2.2% to 2.2 million mt.
Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed domestic HRC prices in Northern Europe at Eur555/mt ex-works Ruhr Oct. 23, down 20% since the start of 2024.
Meanwhile, stocks of German steel products totaled 1.9 million mt in September, slipping 0.5% year on year and down 0.5% month on month, the BDS data showed.
Flat products made up 66.6% of total inventories in September at 1.3 million mt, which was 1.8% higher on the year and up 0.8% on the month.
Long products stocks totaled 600,974 mt in September, or 31.5% of the total inventory, dropping 5.1% year on year and down 2.9% from August.
