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|
 Logo used since 2019 | |
 Headquarters inChiyoda, Tokyo | |
Native name | 日本製鉄株式会社 |
|---|---|
Romanized name | Nippon Seitetsu kabushiki gaisha |
| Formerly |
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| Company type | Public |
| TYO:5401 NAG:5401 FSE:5401 SSE: 5401 TOPIX Large70 component | |
| Industry | Steel |
| Predecessors |
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| Founded | March 31, 1970; 55 years ago (1970-03-31) (asNew Japan Steel)October 1, 2012; 13 years ago (2012-10-01) (asNippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal) |
| Founders | |
| Headquarters | Marunouchi,, Japan |
Key people | Eiji Hashimoto [ja] (chairman & CEO)[1] |
| Revenue |  ¥6.177 trillion (2019)[2] |
| ¥114.20 billion (2017)[3] | |
| ¥251.69 billion (2019)[2] | |
| Total assets | ¥8.049 trillion (2019)[2] |
| Total equity | ¥3.230 trillion (2019)[2] |
Number of employees | 106,068 (2023)[2] |
| Subsidiaries | Nippon Steel Engineering Nippon Steel Materials Nippon Steel Chemical NS Solutions Osaka Steel U.S. Steel |
| Website | www |
Nippon Steel Corporation (日本製鉄株式会社,Nippon Seitetsu kabushiki gaisha; also known asNippon Steel and previously known as Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal until 2019) is a Japanese steel manufacturing company, headquartered inMarunouchi,Chiyoda,Tokyo.[4] The company has four business segments, which are steelmaking, engineering, chemicals, andsystems solutions.[5] It is the largest producer of crude steel in Japan and the fourth largest in the world.[6]
The company is on theForbes Global 2000 list, ranked 1971 in 2023.[7] The company is the third incarnation of the Nippon Steel name, each time with a slightly different spelling or pronunciation. The original company, known asJapan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd.[a], was split into two separate companies in 1950. These two companies later merged in 1970 to formNippon Steel Corporation[b] and this name lasted until 2012, when it merged withSumitomo Metal Industries and rebranded to its post-merger name.[8] The company’s English name reverted to its 1970 name in 2019, while its Japanese name returned to the original 1934 name.
Nippon Steel traces its roots to Japan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., established in 1934 through the merger of theYahata Steel Works and several other steel producers withblast furnaces. In 1950, the company's steel production business was split into two companies: Yawata Iron & Steel (八幡製鉄,Yahata Seitetsu),[c] andFuji Iron & Steel (富士製鉄,Fuji Seitetsu).[10]
These two companies merged again in 1970 to form Nippon Steel Corporation (新日本製鐵,Shin Nippon Seitetsu). Beginning in early 1981, however, the company cut production and saw a sharp decline in profit thatfiscal year. Forced to close furnaces, the company exhibited a typicalJapanese economic aversion to layoffs, opting instead to offer standardearly retirement enticements but also less conventional schemes such as amushroom cultivation venture that used the surplus heat created by steel furnaces to temperature control a fecundfungi complex.[11]
Attributing the drop to higher material costs, the company entered into another troubled year. In 1983, the company reported the end of the fiscal year (March 31) would reveal Nippon Steel was in an even more beleaguered situation. A fall in demand brought about a 39 percent tumble in profits from an already weak previous year.
During this time, the entire Japanese steel industry struggled in a period of turmoil as other nations such asSouth Korea, with only a fraction of labor costs, won over business. The company announced a loss in 1986, prompting a determined effort to diversify away from the moribund "smokestack" industrial sector and to provide new work for thousands of employees that would be transferred from closing furnaces. During the 1980s and 1990s, Nippon Steel permanently closed blast furnaces at three of its eight primary domestic locations:Kamaishi (1989),Sakai (1990), andHirohata (1993).[12][13][14]
Nippon Steel expanded or further established itself insemiconductors,electronics, atheme park calledSpace World,software, and evenhuman resources products. Most notable wasLibrex Computer Systems, Nippon Steel's attempt to sellnotebook computers abroad that lasted from 1990 to 1993.[15][16] The company bucked seven struggling but profitable years when it returned to loss in 1993. Again, thousands of employees would be transferred to new operations. Due to cost-cutting, the company returned to health in 1995. However, Nippon Steel reported earnings in 1999 suffered from an overwhelming charge needed to cover pension costs, a problem not uncommon for shrinking industrial giants. 2002 and 2003 would be back-to-back loss years, but robust demand for steel in thePeople's Republic of China returned the company to profitability. (However, Nippon Steel had an operating profit for 2002 and 2003. The losses were made of extraordinary losses because of reevaluation of real estate and securities of the company among others.) Following a triple merger ofSumitomo Corporation,Kinzoku Steel Corporation (Sumikin Bussan), and the existing Nippon Steel,[when?] NSSC was formed as these companies' conglomerate Stainless Steel division.[17]
In early 2011, Nippon Steel announced plans to merge withSumitomo Metal Industries. With Nippon Steel producing ~26.5 million tonnes of steel per year and Sumitomo making ~11 million tonnes, the merged entity would produce close to 37 million tonnes of crude steel per year. This volume of steel output would make Nippon Steel the second largest steelmaker in the world, putting it well ahead of Baosteel – the current number two (making ~31 mt steel / year) – although still well behindArcelorMittal (who produced 77.5 mt crude steel in 2010).
On October 1, 2012, Nippon Steel formally merged with Sumitomo Metal Industries at a ratio of 0.735 Nippon Steel shares per Sumitomo Metal share.[18] The merged stock is listed (under number 5401, the old Nippon Steel number) as Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp.[19][20] The logistics branches of both companies are announced to be merged on April 1, 2013, under the name "Nippon Steel & Sumikin Logistics Co., Ltd.", wholly owned by Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation.[21] The merged company planned to publish a common fact book in the summer of 2013.[22]
On April 1, 2019, the Japanese name of the company was changed from Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation to Nippon Steel Corporation.
In May 2020, Nippon Steel announced that it would suspend operations of four furnaces, one of which permanently, as it booked an annual loss in FY 2019.[23] On June 18, 2025, Nippon Steel completed an acquisition ofUS Steel for a reported $14.1 billion, at $55-a-share.[24]
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In May 2012, Nippon Steel filed a lawsuit againstPOSCO, a Korean steelmaker established in the 1960s with technical assistance from Nippon Steel, for illegally acquiring the technology for grain-oriented electrical steel sheets developed by Nippon Steel. It was alleged that POSCO hired ex-employees of Nippon Steel to obtain the technology. An ex-POSCO official stated that the company's Tokyo research centre was effectively an espionage base, whose primary purpose was to collect information about Japanese steel companies on orders from the Korean head office.[31][32]
The lawsuit was settled in 2015 through an agreement under which the Korean steelmaker paid 30 billion yen (US$300 million at the time) to Nippon Steel.[33] After the settlement, the two companies renewed their strategic partnership agreement, but by 2024, Nippon Steel had sold all its shares in POSCO.[34]
On October 30, 2018, a lawsuit which was originally filed in 2005 concluded with Nippon being ordered by theSouth Korea Supreme Court to pay compensation totaling 100 million won ($87,680) each to four surviving Koreans who were victims of forced labor at a steel mill which was supervised by Nippon's predecessor company Japan Iron & Steel Co. during Japan'scolonial rule of Korea[35][36][37] The asset seizure ordered by the Korean supreme court involves Nippon's stake in PNR, the POSCO-Nippon joint venture.[38] A Nippon spokesman called the decision "deeply regretful," while also promising a review of the ruling.[39] The Japanese Minister of Foreign AffairsTaro Kono maintained that the matter "has been resolved following theTreaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea".[40] On December 21, 2023, the South Korean Supreme Court would again rule against Nippon in another forced labor lawsuit, with Nippon being ordered to give 100 million won (about $76,700) to seven Korean plaintiffs and their families.[41] On January 11, 2024, the South Korean Supreme Court would uphold a lower court ruling which required Nippon to pay forced labor compensation to family members of a South Korean man who was subjected to forced labor.[42]
On December 18, 2023, Nippon Steel announced an agreement withU.S. Steel topurchase the company for US$14.1 billion, or US$55 per share, pending regulatory approval; when including U.S. Steel debts, the price of the acquisition rises to US$14.9 billion. The company agreed to maintain a headquarters for US Steel in its hometown ofPittsburgh and honor all steelworker union contracts.[43][44][45] On March 14, 2024, however, U.S. President Joe Biden came out against Nippon Steel's bid to acquire U.S. Steel and declared he would use U.S. regulatory authorities to block the planned acquisition;[46][47] The acquisition deal was also opposed by theUnited Steelworkers (USW) labor union.[48][49] In March 2024, USW International President David McCall stated that Biden's decision to support keeping U.S. Steel domestically owned and operated "should end the debate."[48]
In 2024, the company announced that it was proceeding with the acquisition of US Steel, despitePresident Biden's position. Nippon Steel Trading committed to theUnited Steelworkers (USW) union, which had also opposed the deal, to invest an additional $1.4 billion and also guaranteed that, subject to a number of conditions, there would be no layoffs or plant closures until September 2026.[50] On January 3, 2025, Biden officially blocked Nippon's Steel bid to purchase U.S. Steel.[51] Nippon Steel filed a lawsuit to challenge the decision to block the deal.[52][53][54]
On June 18, 2025, the acquisition was finalized.[55]
In 2005, the Nippon Steel corporation made a plan to step up its capacity for recycling waste plastics intocoke by 30%. Coke is a main resource in steel production. To manage the load they have invested ¥4 billion (about $38.2 million) to install equipment at Oita Mill and set up a second furnace at Kyushu facility.[56]
In 2006, Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) jointly created a high tensile strength steel. The first application this steel was used for was the hulls of container ships. This steel allows the ships to be just as strong without the thick steel that it was requiring for them to grow in size. The smaller thickness allows the ships to attain a greater fuel-efficiency, cutting down on the environmental load of the ships.[57]
Nippon Steel announced a pilot project to process waste food into ethanol in 2006. They have tasked Kitakyushu City with collecting and sorting thefood waste and Nishihara Co., a waste management company, with developing new technologies to implement the sorted collecting system. To minimize costs they will use waste heat from an existing incineration facility that had not been effectively utilized, and the residue left after ethanol recovery will be burned in this incinerator.[58]
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