CRU’s Wire and Cable team is the leading global, third-party independent provider of market analysis and forecasts for metallic and optical cable supply and demand. Our services also offer insights into trade statistics, global construction, manufacturing, and power generation, transmission, and distribution.
This insight reviews the wire and cable industry’s key developments from the past year and identifies ten key trends that we expect will shape the market throughout 2025.
2024 in review: Weakness in Europe and China offset by demand in US and emerging markets
For metallic wire and cable, 2024 was a year with clear regional winners and losers. The major demand hubs of Europe and China both struggled with consumption in certain end-use sectors as the construction industries were incredibly weak. In Europe, high interest rates and recessions in many economies were to blame, while in China, weak real estate sector, low consumer confidence and structural financing challenges caused headaches. The US showed greater strength, but by far, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East proved to be the most resilient regions for metallic cable demand based on high levels of government investment as well as young populations, which are rapidly urbanising and industrialising.
2024 was a challenging and transition year for the optical fibre and cable industry. Global demand contracted as competition intensified, putting significant pressure on pricing. As some of the major regions have largely completed their fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) buildout, the demand for this application was lower, as evidenced by trends in China and Europe, painting a picture that new, innovative solutions will be needed in the future for optical cable demand to maintain strong levels. One of them has been the accelerated development of hyperscale data centre driven by artificial intelligence applications.
Meanwhile, rising protectionism and geopolitics – driven by several anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations – significantly affected export markets in China and India. The US remained the only developed market to show strong growth in 2024, rebounding from a challenging 2023, while the Middle East and Africa offered pockets of optimism.
Forecast versus reality: Review of selected calls from 2024
- China will continue to support the economy via state-owned enterprises (SOE’s): China struggled with weak domestic demand in 2024. As private enterprises lost steam amid weak consumer demand, China’s state-owned enterprises compensated for the weakness to provide stabilisation. We expect to see this continue into 2025.
- Consolidation to take place as smaller cable producers struggle: 2024 was a challenging period for many cable makers. Despite this, most of the high-profile M&A activity was longer-term, strategic acquisitions rather than distressed players.
- AI uptake drives data centre demand for cables: Cable demand for data centres, fuelled largely by AI and cloud applications, has been one of the fastest growing applications in 2024. Though data centre cables are estimated to comprise only 4.4% of optical cable demand and 1.2% of metallic cable demand in 2024, this share is expected to grow exponentially over the coming years.
CRU Wire and Cable top ten calls for 2025
CRU’s top ten calls for 2025 are outlined below. These topics will be covered in detail throughout the year in our Wire and Cable and Optical Fibre and Cable services.
Data centre applications will continue to be the fastest-growing application for both metallic and optical cables. Data and power demand will grow exponentially as AI continues to see more application in daily life and business operations.
Driven by ambitious green energy transition goals, Europe will see nearly 10% increased demand in cables for offshore wind, with volume being the highest around the globe. Slowdowns in projects are expected in other key regions such as China and North America.
Demand for metallic cables in China has slowed in recent years as the residential construction market faced debt and demand-related challenges. Companies will look overseas to Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa as new export markets as trade barriers in the US and Europe increase.
China’s fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) rollouts have reached a point of saturation, where the market looks to overbuilding, inherently causing a shrinking market. As the world’s largest producer of optical cable, we expect consolidations to start throughout the country.
China supplied 38% of US metallic cable imports in 2015, this has fallen to 16% in 2024. Other countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and the EU are also bringing in measures to support domestic manufacturing and stem low-cost imports.
With weakened optical cable demand in China and other key regions carrying over from 2024, we expect pricing to remain under pressure from imports and fierce competition for available projects. To protect domestic production, countries will continue to battle against imports via duties and tariffs.
As trade barriers are raised, many cable-makers will be prompted to open facilities within countries or trading blocs in order to be considered as domestic supplier. CRU expects to see many new overseas facilities opening or strategic acquisitions.
The US will have the strongest growth by volume as the federal Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program will begin to drive cable demand. As BEAD gains momentum, private equity will seek to gain market share via new broadband networks and subsequent subscribers.
Despite Tesla’s proximity to the US presidency, 2025 will be a year of weak EV demand as subsidies are repealed in most major markets. However, cost-effective Chinese EVs will continue to boom with perhaps some local exports to other Asian markets.
The Indian market is set to have double-digit percentage growth due to the BharatNet Phase III FTTH roll-out program, of which deployments will begin in 2025. This program seeks to deploy approximately 5 M F-km annually, a strong increase from 2024’s base of 16 M F-km.
