A plain high‐carbon steel (0.74% C) was used to study the globularization (spheroidization and coalescence) of pearlite. In order to induce and/or enhance this process, specimens were deformed in the temperature range of austenite‐to‐pearlite transformation. It was found that only hot deformation applied after the completion of pearlite transformation leads to spheroidization of pearlite. The rate of this process is accelerated by a factor of 104 compared with annealing without deformation. The kinetics of pearlite spheroidization are dependent on the pearlite lamellae thickness as well as pearlite orientation with respect to the direction of deformation. The final microstructure is, compared with that after a conventional soft annealing, considerably finer, the strength properties thus being largely retained.