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.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said its materials management head, Vanessa Lee (李文如), had tendered her resignation for personal reasons. The personnel adjustment takes effect tomorrow, TSMC said in a statement. The latest development came one month after Lee reportedly took leave from the middle of last month. Cliff Hou (侯永清), senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer, is to concurrently take on the role of head of the materials management division, which has been under his supervision, TSMC said. Lee, who joined TSMC in 2022, was appointed senior director of materials management and
Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登精密), the sole extreme ultraviolet pod supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), yesterday said it has trimmed its revenue growth target for this year as US tariffs are likely to depress customer demand and weigh on the whole supply chain. Gudeng’s remarks came after the US on Monday notified 14 countries, including Japan and South Korea, of new tariff rates that are set to take effect on Aug. 1. Taiwan is still negotiating for a rate lower than the 32 percent “reciprocal” tariffs announced by the US in April, which it later postponed to today. The
MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR: Revenue from AI servers made up more than 50 percent of Wistron’s total server revenue in the second quarter, the company said Wistron Corp (緯創) on Tuesday reported a 135.6 percent year-on-year surge in revenue for last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, with the momentum expected to extend into the third quarter. Revenue last month reached NT$209.18 billion (US$7.2 billion), a record high for June, bringing second-quarter revenue to NT$551.29 billion, a 129.47 percent annual increase, the company said. Revenue in the first half of the year totaled NT$897.77 billion, up 87.36 percent from a year earlier and also a record high for the period, it said. The company remains cautiously optimistic about AI server shipments in the third quarter,
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Thursday met with US President Donald Trump at the White House, days before a planned trip to China by the head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, people familiar with the matter said. Details of what the two men discussed were not immediately available, and the people familiar with the meeting declined to elaborate on the agenda. Spokespeople for the White House had no immediate comment. Nvidia declined to comment. Nvidia’s CEO has been vocal about the need for US companies to access the world’s largest semiconductor market and is a frequent visitor to China.
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