ASEAN Cable Sector Coiled for Growth—Wire Southeast Asia Seminar

Consumption of cables in Southeast Asia is forecast to accelerate in 2026, growing by 6.2% to an estimated 1.083 million tonnes of conductors, representing a global market share of 5% according to Chenfei Wang, Principal Analyst, Head of Wire & Cable, at market watcher CRU (Shanghai China). This outlook is a step up from the 5.5% annual growth estimated for 2025. Wang was speaking at a seminar co-located with trade event Wire Southeast Asia, which concluded last week in Bangkok, Thailand.

Within Southeast Asia, Wang pointed out Indonesia and Malaysia as countries exhibiting particularly strong growth. "We are also seeing surges in demand in Vietnam and the Philippines, while growth in Thailand we are forecasting at 3.2% next year," says Wang.

While Vietnam is building up its cable manufacturing base, it is still reliant on Chinese imports to satisfy around 40% of domestic demand. "I don't want to speculate, but we do believe some of cables are entering ose countries [such as Vietnam or Laos] maybe for transshipping and then perhaps go to other places in the world like the U,S.," cautions Wang.

In terms of applications, investment in data centers and construction in general is one of the trends driving growth in demand for cables. Further, while automobile production in Thailands forecast to slump by 10.8% this year mainly due to Japanese OEMs reassessing their strategies in the country, Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers such as BYD are planning major investments in Thailand and this should see a major rebound of 16.3% in 2026, with growth through to 2030 pegged at 5.6% per annum. This will accelerate demand for cable products.

In terms of investment in cable manufacture, high-voltage capacity has been added in Malaysia and Vietnam, some of it targeting subsea marine cable production. "There is no longer just a focus on low-voltage energy cable. [These countries] are starting to focus on power cables and higher voltage catenary continuous vulcanization (CCV) line, even vertical continuous vulcanization (VCV) lines," says Wang. "And this is exactly what is happening in India as well, with its booming demand," he adds.