The market research firm SNE Research said on October 6 that global EV battery usage from January to August this year was 287.6 GWh, up 78.7 percent from a year ago.
Among them, Ningde Times’ EV battery usage jumped 114.7 percent year-on-year to 102.2 GWh, with the company’s market share rising from 29.6 percent to 35.5 percent. In contrast, LG Energy Solutions’ market share fell from 22.3% to 13.7%, and the combined market share of SK On, Samsung SDI and LG Energy Solutions fell from 33.5% to 25%. BYD’s EV battery usage grew by more than 192% year-on-year.
Chinese companies are rapidly expanding their overseas operations. For example, Ningde Times, whose main product is square batteries, recently announced that its cylindrical batteries will be supplied to BMW starting in 2025. Currently, cylindrical batteries are a major product for LG Energy Solutions, Samsung SDI and Panasonic.
Ningde Times is also currently building a 100GWh per year plant in Hungary, with an investment of €7.3 billion. This is Ningde’s second plant in Europe, after the German plant scheduled to open this year, and the company is also considering building a third plant in Europe to double its battery production.
China is dominating electric vehicle battery minerals, which is a huge advantage for Chinese EV battery manufacturers. In mineral processing and smelting, where China has a 50 to 70 percent market share in different sectors, the raw materials used by Korean EV battery manufacturers are in most cases imported from China.
