Producer
Kiswire Ltd.
Major South Korean steel cord and wire rope producer; one of the world's largest tire steel cord manufacturers (~10-12% global share). Also produces wire rope for offshore oil and gas, elevator cables, and suspension bridge wire. Competes directly with Bekaert across tire OEM and replacement markets. Operations in South Korea, China, Malaysia, and other countries.
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Goods downstream
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Facilities
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Stories
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1 input Kiswire Ltd. supplies
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Steel Tire Cord
55%Wire Rope & Strand
28%Steel Wire Products
12%Specialty Wire & International
5%
Intelligence
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Did you know2022
Kiswire's wire rope for mine hoisting is a safety-critical product where supply chain concentration creates unusual risk: deep mine shafts (gold mines in South Africa run to 4,000m depth, among the world's deepest) depend on a small number of wire rope suppliers who can meet the safety certification standards for man-riding hoists. Wire rope failures in mine hoisting are catastrophic events; regulatory approval processes for certified mine hoisting rope are lengthy and supplier-specific. Kiswire, Bekaert, Bridon, and a few others share this market globally. An underground mine with a broken man-riding rope that cannot source a certified replacement from an alternative supplier faces extended production shutdowns and evacuation procedures. The same Kiswire plant that produces bead wire for passenger tires also produces certified mine hoisting rope — a life-safety application for deep-earth workers that is industrially downstream from the tire supply chain but nearly invisible to automotive procurement teams.
Kiswire Ltd. ↗Origin2022
Kiswire Ltd., founded in Busan, South Korea in 1945, is one of the world's major producers of both steel tire cord and structural wire rope — two products that look nothing alike commercially but share a manufacturing ancestry in high-carbon wire drawing. Steel tire cord is made from 0.7-0.9% carbon steel rod, drawn through a series of progressively finer diamond dies (patenting the wire at intermediate diameters to restore ductility), then twisted into cord structures with 2-5 filaments that are embedded in tire rubber. The same wire-drawing infrastructure, metallurgical expertise, and high-carbon steel procurement relationships that support tire cord production also supply wire rope for cranes, mining hoists, elevators, and suspension bridges. Kiswire has been a beneficiary of South Korea's integrated steel and manufacturing ecosystem: POSCO provides rod coil feedstock, Kiswire converts it to wire products, Korean tire companies (Hankook, Kumho, Nexen) buy the tire cord. Korea's tire cord export capability — Kiswire also sells to Michelin, Bridgestone, and Continental globally — reflects the country's emergence as an advanced materials exporter alongside its better-known semiconductor and shipbuilding industries.
Kiswire Ltd. ↗