The majority of Ovako's products are sold to customers in Europe but steel is also exported to North America and Asia.

Ovako is Europe's biggest manufacturer of piston rods for the hydraulics industry via its CROMAX group of companies.

[citation needed] Ovako has 8 production sites: Boxholm, Hallstahammar, Hofors,[4][5] Hällefors and Smedjebacken in Sweden, Imatra in Finland, Molinella in Italy and Redon in France.

Ovako's production is a further development of some of the ironworks set up in Sweden in the 17th and 18th centuries in places such as Hofors, Boxholm and Hällefors.

The ironworks gradually grew into major industrial centers and subsequently belonged to the companies that merged to form Ovako today.

[10] 1935 saw the start of production of steel in Imatra, Finland, where Ovako still operates today, as it does in Hofors and Hällefors.

The predecessors of what is Ovako today gradually began to focus production on special steel.

During the same period, the steelworks in Smedjebacken, Hofors and Imatra supplied increasing volumes of steel to the automotive and engineering industries.

[12] On the 5th of September 2023, Ovako's hydrogen plant in Hofors was inaugurated by the Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.