Brazilian Vale SA, the world's top iron ore producer, said on Thursday that the company reached 85.3 million metric tons of ore output in the second quarter, representing a 7.4 percent increase compared with the same period last year.

The output represented the second highest quarterly production ever for the company.

As iron ore prices kept falling, driven by China, the biggest iron ore user's slowing demand, the major iron ore miners have been increasing their production capacities to reach lower operational cost and gain bigger market share.

Vale has been working on increasing its production capacity from the current 340 million tons to 450 million tons in two years, said the company during a previous interview with China Daily in June.

With the output expansion plan, the Rio de Janeiro-based company keeps up the pressure on Australian rivals BHP Billiton Ltd and Rio Tinto Plc in the battle for market share in the global iron ore business.

For the first half, Vale's iron ore output reached a new record of 159.8 million tons, 9.3 million tons higher than in the first half of 2014.

The company, also the world's largest nickel producer, produced 67,100 tons of nickel and 2.01 million tons of coal in the second quarter, it said in a statement.

Copper output was 104,900 tons for the second quarter, also the best performance for a second quarter, 29.5 percent higher than the same period last year.