From the perspective of cathode & anode procurement quantity, it’s very shocking that LG Chem surpassed Panasonic and Samsung SDI surpassed BYD in total lithium ion battery output in 2019. It’s well known that portable electric batteries, small power batteries as well as energy storage batteries take up a high ratio in the whole global lithium ion market.
ICCSINO lists global total lithium ion output ranking and installed vehicle power battery output ranking as follows:
As leading battery enterprise in the world, CATL ranks 1st in global total lithium ion battery output and installed vehicle batteries in 2019 as well. According to ICCSINO, CATL’s installed vehicle batteries in 2019 is 33.16 GWh, which take up 73.68% of its total lithium ion batteries. A fraction of CATL’s remaining batteries are used for ESS, battery renewing and other batteries are as inventories kept by both CATL and some automakers. CATL will continue to develop swiftly in 2020, since its downstream automakers (BAIC, GEELY, SAIC, BMW etc.) are accelerating their electrification driven by Chinese subsidy policy. ICCSINO forecast that CATL will realize installed vehicle batteries of 50 GWh in 2020.
Followed after CATL, according to ICCSINO, LG Chem purchased 80000MT cathode materials worldwide in 2019. In other words, based on calculation, LG Chem produced around 40 GWh lithium ion batteries in 2019. Among terminal application of LG Chem’s batteries, 25% batteries were applied on ESS and 45% batteries used on portable electric equipment. ICCSINO predicts that total installed vehicle batteries of LG Chem was around 12 GWh in 2019 and LG Chem would expand its vehicle battery proportion in near future driven by Tesla orders in Shanghai, and traditional European automakers expansion worldwide especially in Europe which would be accelerated by European strictest carbon emission policy implemented in 2020.
As the common supplier of Tesla, Panasonic’s total lithium ion battery in 2019 was 32 GWh and installed vehicles batteries output was 30.21 GWh which took up 94.4% of its total batteries. There is a common point between Panasonic and CATL is that they both focus on vehicle power batteries. Restricted by limited production capacity, ICCSINO predicts that Panasonic would develop comparatively smoothly compared with CATL, LG Chem and SDI. Whereas, Panasonic is still very predominant in global vehicle batteries based on its high quality which has been proven by Tesla.
Another Korean battery manufacturer Samsung SDI totally produced 30 GWh lithium ion batteries in 2019, in which 5 GWh used for electric vehicles and 25 GWh used for Portable electric batteries. People are optimistic about Samsung SDI’s development especially on vehicle battery output, while it did not live up to our expectations in 2019. As we know, Samsung SDI offers batteries to BMW, Volkswagen and Lucid Motors etc., ICCSINO predicts that total installed vehicle batteries of Samsung SDI in 2019 was 5 GWh. Based on the rapid expansion plan released by BMW and Volkswagen, Samsung SDI will develop rapidly and improve its ratio on vehicle power batteries in 2020.
