LG Chemical becomes the world’s largest lithium battery company CATL retreats to third place

Table of Contents

1. Industry News

2. Market Update
3. Learn more about batteries

Industry News

In the first quarter of this year, lithium-ion battery giant LG Chemical surpassed Japan’s Panasonic and China’s Ningde era (CATL) to become the world’s largest battery maker, according to a report released on May 7 by SNE Research. SNE Research is a new energy equipment research and information agency in Korea, focusing on lithium batteries, electric vehicles, photovoltaic new energy, LCD/LED/OLED new lighting equipment, and other fields. LG’s chemical installed capacity was 5.5 GWh in the first quarter, up 120% from 2.5 GWh a year earlier, according to SNE Research.

(Source: LG Chemical)

Market Update

LG Chemical’s global market share rose from 10.7% in the first quarter to 27.1% in the first quarter of this year, as installed capacity soared.

Sales of Tesla Model 3, Renault Zoe, and Volkswagen electric vehicles have led to a strong increase in installed capacity for LG’s chemical batteries, according to SNE Research.

In the first quarter of this year, Panasonic’s market share was second with 25.7%, while the Ningde era came in third with 17.4%, down 6 percentage points from 23.4% a year earlier.

In the first quarter of last year, Ningde was the world’s number one with 23.4 percent of the market, Panasonic was second in the world with 22.9 percent, BYD was third with 15.1 percent, and LG Chemical was fourth with 10.7 percent.

In China, Japan, and South Korea battery river, South Korean battery manufacturers momentum.

In the first quarter of this year, Samsung SDI ranked fourth in the world with a 6% market share, and SKI was the seventh-largest in the world with 4.5%, according to SNE Research.

LG Chem, Samsung SDI and SKI combined for 37.5 percent, up 21.1 percent from 16.4 percent a year earlier.

AESC, a subsidiary of China Vision Energy Ltd., rose from 4.4% a year earlier to 5.6% in the first quarter of this year, ranking fifth in the world.

BYD (002594. SZ) ranks sixth in the world after AESC with 4.9% of the market share, down 10.2 percentage points from 15.1% a year earlier.

Global EV battery market share in Q1 (Source - SNE Research)