Last weekend, WorldSteel reported full 2025 steel production data across the world. India produced an all-time high of 165 million metric tonnes, up nearly 10% from the prior year.
For context, this is how Indian steel output looks like compared to some other entities in 2025:
India outproduced the combined North + South American continents. It also outproduced the combined US + Japanese output, and almost matched combined European output - EU27 + UK + Turkey etc.
Indian steel output in 2025 was second only to China. Not just in 2025 output, but in all history. India overtook the peak output of the USSR, achieved in 1988. Barring China, no other country has produced this much steel in a year.
China produces significantly more steel than anyone else, including India. But the absolute numbers alone do not tell a complete story.
How does the steel intensity of economic output compare between India and China? The following chart shows this.
Indian steel intensity has been progressively rising, as steel output growth has slightly exceeded real GDP growth. The Chinese figure is falling, and the two are converging.
It’s often stated that the intensity of Chinese industrialization vastly exceeds that of India’s. By many metrics that is indeed true, but steel intensity is a surprising outlier where Indian intensity is quite close and may even overtake China’s when new capacity additions come on stream in the next few years.
At the current rate of growth, steel output growth is on track to hit 200MT in the next 2-3 years, potentially 250MT within 5-6 years. It would coincide with a phase of heavy industrial and infrastructure development activity that will hopefully change perspectives around the extent of industrialization in India.