SSAB Special Steels

Fast facts

SSAB Special Steels’ wide product portfolio includes a number of unique steel grades. Hardox – our global brand of wear steels – has the highest awareness of all brands in the steel market. Through close collaboration, we help our customers to utilize our products in the best possible way to create new, innovative steel solutions and applications.

Employees, approximately: 4,100

Revenue in 2023: 32,145 million SEK

Head of SSAB Special Steels: Per Elfgren

Steel shipments in 2023: 1.3 million tonnes

550 Hardox Wearparts members

Present in more than 115 countries

Market position

SSAB Special Steels is the global leader in high-strength steels and is represented in markets in Europe, the Americas, APAC, the Middle East and Africa. About 50% of sales are in Europe and 20% in North America. SSAB defines the special steel market as hot-rolled products with a yield strength of 690 MPa and above. The total market is estimated to be around 5 million tonnes and, since demand grows structurally, it therefore outperforms demand growth for standard steel.

Market drivers

Requirements and demand for improved material and energy efficiency, as well as for productivity, are important drivers leading to the growing use of high-strength steels, which provide advantages in the form of stronger, lighter and more durable steel solutions. The penetration of high-strength steels is increasing in all markets, as customers upgrade their steel usage from standard to high-strength steels. In emerging markets, including Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia, where the use of high-strength steels is still relatively low, the market potential for high-strength steels is even higher than in mature markets like Europe and North America.

Strengths

Unique and highly advanced premium products with high quality
Unique go-to market model with a global network serving 115 countries
Close customer collaboration and joint projects with customers result in highly paced development and increased competitiveness
Strategy of being able to supply high-strength fossil-free steels in 2026

Strategy

SSAB is the largest producer of high-strength steels globally and has an estimated market share of 25%. SSAB Special Steels is responsible for sales of SSAB's quenched and tempered (Q&T) steels and advanced high-strength steels (AHSS) as well as for steel production in Oxelösund, Sweden, and Mobile, USA. The division's broad portfolio includes a number of unique high-strength steels, including the Hardox (quenched and tempered plate with high wear resistance) and Strenx (advanced structural steel) brands.

Sales are diversified across customer-segments and geographies. SSAB Special Steels sells plate both directly to machine builders and service centers as well as to smaller end-users through our own global sales network. The subsidiaries in Abraservice Group and the Hardox Wearparts network (independent actors offering wear parts and repair services) supply the market with parts made of Hardox wear plate.

SSAB Special Steels' products add significant customer value in the form of increased productivity and sustainability performance, which creates the prerequisites for more stable prices over the business cycle. The high-strength steel market is growing structurally and the strategy is to drive growth by launching new products and by developing applications with customers to enable them to upgrade to high-strength steel from standard steel. The goal is to deliver 2.2 million tonnes of high-strength steel in 2030. Shipments in 2023 were 1.3 million tonnes

SSAB Special Steels contributes to SSAB's strategy by:

Increasing the Group's share of high-strength steel in relation to total sales
Transforming to fossil-free steelmaking in Oxelösund by construction of an electric arc furnace and closure of the blast furnaces
Developing the fossil-free offering
Increasing downstream growth to reduce sensitivity to business cycles

Customers and end-users

SSAB Special Steels’ main end customer segments include manufacturers of heavy transport, construction machinery and material handling including mining and recycling. SSAB Special Steels works in close collaboration with large OEMs, as well as with smaller and mid-sized customers through a global organization. Examples of customer applications include booms and chassis for mobile cranes, tipper bodies for trailers, and buckets for construction and mining machinery. We share a goal with our customers to make lighter, stronger end-products with better lifting capacity, higher payloads, longer service life and lower fuel consumption and emissions.

Main customer segments and applications:

Heavy transport, incl. trailers, trucks, railway transport, agriculture and forestry
Construction machinery, incl. lifting (dumpers, loaders and cranes)
Material handling, incl. mining and recycling (crushers, buckets and conveyors

High-strength structural steels:

Mobile cranes (booms, chassis and support legs)
Truck-mounted cranes
Aerial work platforms
Chassis for trailers and trucks
Agricultural machinery
Offshore (selected components such as jack-up rigs)

Wear steels:

Dumper bodies for both off-road and on-road use
Buckets
Containers
Stationary mining equipment such as crushers
Recycling equipment
Wear parts to several segments and applications

Protection steels:

Vehicles for safe transportation of people and valuables
Protection for buildings and counters

Tool steels:

Molds
Tool holders
Axles

Products and services

SSAB Special Steels has the widest product portfolio on the market, combined with deep knowledge of steel properties and performance. SSAB Special Steels is responsible for all SSAB’s Q&T and hot-rolled AHSS with yield strengths of 690 MPa and above. These products can further be divided into structural high-strength steels, wear steels, protection steels and tool steels. SSAB Special Steels’ product portfolio includes a number of brands and product lines, each of which has its own unique characteristics and target applications, and comes in a range of grades and dimensions:

Hardox^® is the leading brand of wear steels. It offers a unique combination of hardness and toughness, which in turn enable lighter, more durable structures for higher payload and longer service life
Strenx^® is SSAB’s high-strength structural steel product brand. Its high strength combined with good impact toughness and forming properties enable strong, light structures for higher payload
Raex™ is a distributor brand for wear steel designed to meet standard demands on the market
Toolox^® is a pre-hardened tool steel with very good machinability and is available as plate and bars
Armox^® and Ramor are protection plate with properties designed especially for the protection of life and property

SSAB Services

SSAB Services, a business unit within SSAB Special Steels, focuses on providing products and services to machine builders and the after-market business. It aims to develop the Hardox^® Wearparts network and to facilitate the usage of high-strength steels by further promoting the SSAB Shape concept. SSAB’s technical support is a key element in our service offering and has a strong local presence worldwide.

Hardox^® Wearparts is a network of companies for the production of wear parts and just-in-time repair services to end-users in the local aftermarket in the mining, quarrying, recycling and construction sectors. The network is represented across more than 80 countries and consists of approximately 540 companies
SSAB Shape combines premium steel products with engineering and processing services offered through our own Shape Centers and a worldwide network of processing partners. The service includes customized product development and engineering, extensive design support and prefabrication services, as well as reliable, tailor-made logistics and stock services
By providing technical support to customers at an early stage in the product development process, our technical experts contribute knowledge as to how the qualities of high-strength steels can be utilized to create new, innovative solutions and applications

The benefits of tool steel in industrial applications

SSAB offers a variety of tool steels known for their strength, durability and ease of machining. These steels are formulated to meet the demands of different industrial applications.

The role of armor steel in defense and security

SSAB offers armor steel, a type of steel specifically designed for use in ballistic and amors applications. It is characterized by high hardness and strength, making it suitable for use in a wide range of protective equipment and strucutres.

Read more about armor and ballistic steels

Competitors

SSAB Special Steels' main competitors are ArcelorMittal, Dillinger, Voestalpine, Nucor, Nippon Steel, ThyssenKrupp, JFE and NLMK Clabeq.