Copper's Record High Meets a New Entrant Wave — the Filings Show Which Cable Makers Are Actually Insulated
Copper hit a record high this week, and Indian wires-and-cables stocks were marked down as a group. The Economic Times framed it as a "double whammy for cable makers in FY27": input costs spiking just as UltraTech enters the segment with its Ultravolt brand.
But "cable maker" is not one business. Read the filings and the damage is segment-specific: the companies hurt by a fast copper move are those selling house wire to retail dealers. Those selling to utilities and project developers have the cost written into the contract. And the most interesting name here doesn't touch copper at all.
Why retail wire is where copper actually bites
Polycab has been unusually candid about this. On its Q3 FY26 earnings call (January 2026), management explained the margin miss directly: "due to copper price inflation, we've delayed or staggered our pass-through of rising prices to our customers. Second, there has been an unfavourable business mix change wherein institutional business has grown faster than channel [business]."
That is the whole mechanism. When copper moves fast, a company selling through dealers cannot reprice instantly — dealers hold stock bought at the old price, and pushing a hike invites a competitor to undercut you.
This has happened before. On the October 2024 call, Polycab said competitive intensity rose "specifically in Wires," because "the copper prices shot up very steeply in a very short frame of time," with copper having "rallied by 14% cumulatively, leading to margin compression."
Importantly, this is a margin story, not a demand story. In that same Q3 FY26 quarter, Polycab's domestic wires and cables business recorded nearly 40% volume growth. The company guides to an 11–13% EBITDA margin over the long term. Volumes are fine; the squeeze is on the spread.
The companies with copper written into the contract
KEI Industries describes an almost opposite setup. Per its October 2025 call: "all the retail segment pricing is revised every 15 days and more than 54% sale is through B2C network. And the B2B sale, whatever orders are there, we always keep inventory of copper." On the May 2026 call: "there is no issue for the pass on since last 4, 5 years, if you see our balance sheet, you will not find a fluctuation in our EBITDA margin."
KEI's order book at 31 December 2025 was ₹3,928 crore, including ₹717 crore of extra-high-voltage (EHV) work. EHV matters because it is hard to enter: asked about rivals' new EHV capacity, management noted it "will come up only after 1 year."
Finolex Cables reported the cleanest pass-through. Its Q3 FY26 presentation (February 2026) states plainly: "Copper price increases were effectively passed on, protecting margin profile and operating stability," on revenue of ₹1,599 crore, up 35% year-on-year. But note the full-year shape: FY26 revenue rose 19% to ₹6,321 crore while EBITDA (₹868 crore) and PAT (₹623 crore) each grew 14%. Copper inflates the top line faster than profit — a trap if you judge these companies on revenue growth.
Apar Industries has the most explicit hedge. Per its August 2023 call: "aluminium and copper are completely pass-through... we take a back-to-back hedging for both the conductor and cable business."
But Apar also flags the risk pass-through does not solve. On its January 2026 call, the discussion turned to customers "putting project or inflows on hold because of high commodity price, especially copper, aluminium." If you fully pass copper on, your margin is safe — but your customer may postpone the project. At record copper, the risk migrates from margins to order flow.
RR Kabel, which reprices off a 15–20 day average whenever copper moves 2–3%, shows the sector is not uniformly hurting: Q1 FY27 was its "highest ever quarterly revenue, EBITDA and profit after tax." Universal Cables, an EHV-weighted player, grew 9M FY26 revenue to ₹2,182.40 crore from ₹1,734.35 crore, with EBITDA of ₹210.41 crore versus ₹136.72 crore.
The supply wave is real — and it has a supplier
The new-entrant threat is not just a headline. Cords Cable's FY26 annual report (September 2026) cites ratings-agency work that cable-and-wire makers will add roughly 20–22% capacity by end-FY27, "with nearly half of the capacity additions expected to come from new entrants." KEI named names in January 2026: "we have seen a few new entrants on pan-India basis like Torrent, Surya, Roshni, Luker."
Which points to the unexpected winner: Ddev Plastiks Industries, which makes the PVC, XLPE and HFFR compounds that insulate the wire. It sells to the whole industry, and its raw material is polymer, not copper. Its presentations state PVC demand "is expected to rise" with "the entry of new participants in the Industry such as Adani and Ultratech." Management was specific in August 2025: that entry "will start from the building wires initially. And that is where the PVC's role is very important."
Ddev is building for it — PVC compound capacity going from 44,000 to 69,000 MTPA, HFFR from 5,000 to 10,000 MTPA, and an XLPE expansion in Q1 FY27 it expects to add about ₹500 crore of revenue. Production volumes rose from 1,39,178 MT in FY20 to 1,89,374 MT in FY25, against a stated ambition of ₹5,000 crore of compounding revenue by FY30.
What retail investors should do
Stop treating "wires and cables" as one trade. Before buying the dip, check two things in the company's disclosures: what share of sales goes through dealers versus institutions, and whether management can point to a repricing mechanism it has actually used. A firm repricing retail every 15 days and holding copper inventory against B2B orders is in a different position from one staggering hikes to protect dealer relationships.
Second, watch order inflows, not just margins, at the pass-through names — Apar's caution about deferred projects is the leading indicator if copper stays elevated. Third, copper pass-through inflates revenue growth without adding profit, so judge these companies on EBITDA and volumes, not headline sales.
Finally, in a capacity war where nearly half the new capacity comes from new entrants, the supplier selling to every combatant carries neither the copper risk nor the price war — though Ddev is a small-cap whose thesis depends on those announced expansions actually landing.
Data sourced from company filings on NSE via Xaro.