US stainless steel consumption in the consumer appliance sector is beating expectations and growing in 2013, according to Steven Wasil, Outokumpu Stainless USA's director of national sales.
The trend toward lightweighting in automotive production should also boost stainless consumption, he added.
An expected drop in stainless steel usage in the appliance sector in 2013 "has not manifested itself', Wasil told Metal Bulletin sister publication AMM in an interview.
"What has actually happened is the opposite: we've seen continued use of stainless, not only in exposed panel applications such as fridge doors but (...) a huge increase in internal components using stainless," he said.
"It's most notable in the fabric-care segment," Wasil said.
"The market used to be dominated by top-loaded washing machines, and we've seen a big migration to front-loaders. So all of the internal baskets have been converted to stainless, because you have the strength of stainless and the corrosion resistance," he explained.
"On the dishwasher side, we've seen a migration away from plastic in [low-cost appliances] towards stainless steel. At the high[-cost] end, they've always been made from stainless, but now the majority of tubs have converted to stainless and only a very few dishwashers at the low[-cost] end are still made from plastic," he said.
Overall appliance sales are likely to improve in 2013 after having dropped in 2011 and 2012, Wasil said.
He attributed this to an acceleration of sales in 2010 due to the US federal government's "Cash for Crispers" appliance-purchase stimulus programme.
"For 2013, the industry was giving guidance of 3% growth," he said. "We now expect it will be much stronger."
This report was first published by American Metal Market .
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