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BYD Co (比亞迪) jumped to second place in global electric-vehicle battery rankings in July, overtaking LG Energy Solution Ltd as China’s demand for clean automobiles surges.
The Chinese vehicle and battery maker supplied 6.4 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of batteries in July, behind only giant Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL, 新能源科技) with 13.3GWh. LG Energy slipped to third with 4.4GWh, followed by Japan’s Panasonic Holdings Corp at 2.9GWh, data released yesterday by Seoul-based SNE Research showed.
Global battery sales rose to 39.7GWh in July, up 80 percent from a year earlier, the report showed.
Photo: Bloomberg
The year-to-date market share rankings were unchanged, with CATL leading with 34.7 percent of the market, followed by LG Energy at 14.2 percent and BYD with 12.6 percent.
Demand for electric vehicles (EVs) continues to soar as high gasoline prices spur drivers to switch to hybrids and battery-powered vehicles, and automakers electrify their fleets.
Still, EV makers face challenges, with the UK and Germany slashing subsidies, the US pushing to reduce reliance on Chinese minerals and components while surging materials prices pushing up the cost of batteries.
Another Chinese company, China Aviation Lithium Battery Co (中航鋰電) ranked sixth by sales in July, overtaking South Korea’s Samsung SDI Co.
Chinese firms led overall growth in the EV battery industry, while the total market share of South Korea’s three battery makers — LG, Samsung and SK — declined to 25.9 percent from 34.2 percent a year ago, SNE said.
Chinese battery makers appear to be sustaining their pricing power amid tight supply, while China’s battery usage is expected to almost double this year on surging sales of EVs, Bloomberg Intelligence data showed.
South Korean battery makers need a new strategy to counter subsidies for EVs, such as new US rules that favor US-made EVs and batteries, and rising “skepticism” over EVs in Europe, SNE said.
Separately, traders offloaded more shares of BYD yesterday after a second filing showed Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc had further trimmed its stake in the company.
The Chinese automaker’s stock dropped as much as 6.8 percent to the lowest level since May 10 in Hong Kong. The sell-off extended the shares’ losses to almost 30 percent since a BYD stake that matched Berkshire’s stake appeared in Hong Kong’s clearing and settlement system in July.
Berkshire has now disposed of about 18 million BYD shares and it still holds an 18.87 percent stake, or about 207 million shares, as of Thursday, a Hong Kong stock exchange filing showed.
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