Focusing EV Battery Biz
Samsung SDI Co. plans to concentrate on promoting its electric vehicle (EV) battery business after selling its chemical business unit to Lotte Chemical Corp.
The company will invest 1 trillion won (US$866.18 million) in the EV battery business this year. It is considering a 974.6 billion won (US$844.17 million) investment in facilities this year, mainly targeting the battery business. The figure grew more than 40 percent from that of last year.
"We will invest 3 trillion won in the car battery business by 2020 to make it one of the globally best businesses in the industry," Samsung SDI Chief Executive Cho Nam-seong said during a shareholders' meeting earlier this year.
Keeping pace with the EV market growth, Samsung SDI considers the mid and large secondary cell business as its next-generation growth engine and seek to speed up the turnaround in the EV battery sector with more investment.
Using the investment, the company is expected to expand its manufacturing facilities in Ulsan and Xian, China, while establishing a new facility in Europe. It produces batteries for about 200,000 EVs at its Ulsan and Xian factories. European countries including Hungary have been referred to as possible locations for the new battery plant.
Currently, Samsung SDI is expected to be profitable in the small and mid-sized battery sector this year while remaining in deficit in the EV battery business until 2018. However, the company is planning to focus on the EV battery business in the face of deficits for years and become a global leading firm in the sector in order to prepare the EV market which will become a flourishing market soon.