The copper foil industry is receiving a signal of price increase.

Recently, global copper foil leader Mitsui Metal has significantly raised its 2025 fiscal year performance guidance, becoming a focus of market attention. The core driving force behind the expected increase in net profit attributable to the parent company by 3 billion yen to 17 billion yen, and the simultaneous increase in regular profit to 44 billion yen, is the simultaneous increase in quantity and price of the company's high-end HVLP copper foil (VSP series) for AI servers.

In late July, Jinju, a copper foil manufacturer in Taiwan, China, China, has taken the lead in announcing an increase in the price of RTF copper foil products, with an increase of RMB 3000-4000 per ton, or about 14%. The main reason for the price increase is that Mitsui has increased the production of HVLP copper foil, squeezing the supply space of mid-range RTF products and causing a supply-demand gap. The shipment of Mitsui VSP products has been revised up from 460 tons per month to 580 tons, an increase of 26% compared to the previous period.

Copper foil for PCB is the core material for AI servers and data centers, with HVLP (Ultra Low Profile Copper Foil) having the highest technical barrier. At present, HVLP 4th generation products are standard for servers above M8 level, with processing fees ranging from 120000 to 200000 yuan/ton, far exceeding traditional copper foil by more than 10 times. It is expected to exceed 200000 yuan/ton by 2026.

However, global supply is still insufficient, with a current monthly effective production capacity of only about 700 tons, of which 350 tons are from Japanese companies, and the rest are supplied by Taiwanese and Luxembourg companies. Traditional RTF/HTE production capacity cannot be directly switched to HVLP.

It is worth noting that as copper foil production capacity shifts towards high-end products such as HVLP, the market supply space for mid-range RTF copper foil is further compressed, leading to an expansion of the supply-demand gap. The price increase of Taiwan, China Jinju is a direct reflection of this trend, and the price transmission effect of the industrial chain is gradually emerging.

In this context, domestic manufacturers are accelerating their layout. On July 31st, Nord announced that the new generation HVLP copper foil has been certified by multiple leading PCB companies and will be applied to AI servers and humanoid robot control modules. Downstream leading PCB manufacturers such as Shenghong Technology are all important customers of it.

Defu Technology entered the global high-end market by acquiring Luxembourg copper foil, which is the designated HVLP3 supplier for AI chip manufacturers.

Copper crown and copper foil, on the other hand, have the advantage of bulk supply capacity and are already part of the supply chain of international CCL giants. They will directly benefit from the price increase of RTF products in 2025.

Longyang Electronics is developing the fifth generation HVLP copper foil using vacuum magnetron sputtering technology, with surface roughness controlled below 0.2 microns. Its products are being sent to chip factories worldwide for sampling.

Returning to the copper foil track, electronic circuit copper foil not only shows a gap in demand for copper foil in the PCB field driven by AI, but also maintains the previous weak pattern, and there is no sign of recovery in terminal consumption.

The lithium copper foil market is in a weak recovery state. Since 2025, although processing fees have rebounded from the low point in 2024, they are still under overall pressure. According to research by GGII, the processing fee for lithium battery copper foil has risen from 15000 yuan/ton in September 2024 to 18000 yuan/ton in the second quarter of 2025, returning to the same period in 2023.

However, there is limited room for future price increases. The main reason is that it is difficult to reduce the production capacity on the supply side, and the release speed of new production capacity is faster than the growth of demand. The "80/20 effect" in the industry is still prominent, with stable demand for batteries and stable orders from leading manufacturers. However, low-priced orders continue to flood the market, and downstream battery factories still hold strong bargaining power.

The current cost of processing 6-meter lithium copper foil remains stable. With the trend of ultra-thin coating advancing, the focus of market competition is shifting from 6 microns to 5 microns or even 4.5 microns. Although the corresponding processing fee has profit margins, it is currently being suppressed due to strong bargaining from downstream battery factories, resulting in a decrease in the processing fee for 4.5/5-micron copper foil.