PUBLISHER: Mordor Intelligence | PRODUCT CODE: 1940630
PUBLISHER: Mordor Intelligence | PRODUCT CODE: 1940630
The Aluminum market is expected to grow from 76.47 million tons in 2025 to 78.99 million tons in 2026 and is forecast to reach 92.87 million tons by 2031 at 3.29% CAGR over 2026-2031.

Robust growth follows aluminum's position as the second most used metal, its unbeatable strength-to-weight ratio, and a closed-loop recyclability profile that keeps 75% of all metal ever produced in circulation. Rapid electrification, renewable-energy build-outs, and sustainable packaging mandates are converging to lift demand even as producers confront decarbonization targets, volatile power prices, and trade policy shifts. Top players are channeling capital toward green smelting and scrap recovery, while downstream customers lock in long-run supply to shield themselves from raw material shocks. Asia-Pacific dominates current volumes and retains the fastest trajectory, yet regional capacity ceilings, geopolitical risks, and carbon-border fees are driving fresh investments in North America and the Gulf. Integrated operators with low-carbon billet, recycling depth, and multi-process flexibility stand to capture a growing share of the Aluminum market.
Battery electric vehicles house triple the aluminum content of internal-combustion models, hitting 885 lb per car in North America during 2024. Every 10% mass cut extends driving range by roughly 7%, so automakers now specify aluminum for body-in-white, battery trays, crash structures, and thermal systems. EV penetration may plateau in mature markets after 2028, yet model-mix evolution keeps per-unit metal intensity rising, preserving a growth channel for the Aluminum market even as total auto sales fluctuate.
Asia-Pacific's megaproject pipeline underpins long-cycle demand visibility. Chinese consumption expanded nearly 16% per year since 2000, dwarfing 1% rates elsewhere. Smart-city grids, high-speed rail, and cross-border power links rely on aluminum's conductivity and corrosion resistance, ensuring the region's pull on both primary ingot and fabricated products. Structural slowdowns pose cyclical risk, but stimulus outlays historically cushion downturns, keeping the Aluminum market on an elevated base in the long horizon.
Electricity accounts for nearly 40% of smelting cash costs. European spot power spikes in 2024 forced multiple curtailments that erased over 1 million tons of annualized supply. Smelters cannot ramp down cheaply because frozen pots risk permanent damage, amplifying exposure to intraday price swings. Renewables add long-term stability, but transition financing and grid bottlenecks clamp near-term margins, trimming expansion appetite in high-tariff regions across the aluminium industry.
Other drivers and restraints analyzed in the detailed report include:
For complete list of drivers and restraints, kindly check the Table Of Contents.
Extrusions represented 35.05% of Aluminum market share in 2025 on the back of architectural profiles, heat sinks, and vehicle crash-management parts. Extruders able to deliver low-carbon billet at scale are capturing long-term supply contracts with premium pricing clauses. Castings follow as the fastest riser at 3.5% through 2031, buoyed by giga-casting adoption in automotive body structures. Equipment builders report booked-out die-casting lines until 2027, highlighting a capacity sprint that keeps the Aluminum market size expanding within powertrain and chassis applications.
Flat-rolled products hold a solid slot across beverage can stock and auto panel sheet. Forward-looking mills integrate closed-loop scrap systems, shrinking carbon footprints and locking in feedstock surety. Forgings serve landing-gear and military vehicles, sustaining a high-margin niche underpinned by stringent quality standards. Pigments and powders cater to electronics and additive manufacturing; their trajectory depends on printer penetration rates in aerospace and medical device sectors. The multi-process spectrum underscores aluminum's adaptability and explains why integrated producers maintain strategic investments across extrusion presses, rolling mills, and die-casting cells to secure wallet share within the broader Aluminum market.
The Aluminum Report is Segmented by Processing Type (Castings, Extrusions, Forgings, Flat-Rolled Products, and Pigments and Powders), End-User Industry (Automotive, Aerospace and Defense, Building and Construction, Electrical and Electronics, Packaging, and More), and Geography (Asia-Pacific, North America, Europe, South America, and Middle-East and Africa). The Market Forecasts are Provided in Terms of Volume (Tons).
Asia-Pacific retained 69.58% of global volume in 2025 and is tracking a 3.51% CAGR through 2031. While Beijing's 45 million-ton ceiling slows greenfield smelters, downstream fabrication keeps expanding, propelling internal billet import needs and stimulating investment in secondary aluminum hubs across Malaysia and Indonesia. India scales new cast-house projects to meet smart-city housing and railway electrification, reinforcing the region's gravitational pull on the Aluminum market.
North America produced 3.4% more aluminum products in 2024, yet still logged a 4 million-ton supply deficit. Federal incentives now underpin EGA's USD 4 billion, 600,000-ton Oklahoma smelter and Century Aluminum's USD 500 million green-anode plant, marking the first primary capacity additions stateside since 1980. Europe's share is influenced by energy shocks, shuttered smelters, driving up billet premiums, and elevating import reliance. Yet CBAM incentives and subsidized renewable electricity are luring retrofit projects, such as Rio Tinto's ELYSIS cell roll-out in Iceland, that promise carbon-free metal by late-decade across the aluminium industry.
The GCC leverages low-cost power to export value-added extrusion logs, while Africa's bauxite pipelines flow toward refining ventures that seek to capture more of the Aluminum market value chain locally. South American volumes remain steady around alumina-rich Brazil but are constrained by logistics hurdles and capital scarcity.