EcoPro Group nearly doubles sales target to $7.8 billion this year

South Korea's EcoPro Group has set its sales target this year at 10 trillion won ($7.8 billion), nearly double that of last year, under a strategy to break away from its competitors based on the rapid growth of the battery materials market.

As well as raising R&D investment, the conglomerate will boost its competitiveness by hiring as CEO a former executive of Samsung SDI, one of the country's top three battery and electronic materials makers.

Industry sources on Wednesday said EcoPro Group eyes this year about 10 trillion won in sales on a consolidated basis. This figure is nearly double last year's estimated sales of 5.5 trillion won, which was a jump of 240% from 2021.

Most of this year's sales are expected to come from subsidiary Ecopro BM Co., a cathode material maker that raked in sales of 5.3 trillion won last year as the group's driver of overall performance. Ecopro BM leads Korea in the output of ternary cathode materials with 75,000 tons as of 2021, far ahead of competitors POSCO Chemical with 45,000 and LNF 26,000.

The company by 2027 seeks to raise cathode material output to 710,000 tons and sales to 27 trillion won.

Thanks to favorable business conditions, the company is confident of average annual growth of about 80% over the next five years. A report on the global market for lithium batteries and supply chain trends by the Export-Import Bank of Korea’s Overseas Economic Research Institute said the four major battery materials – cathode and anode materials, separators and electrolytes – are expected to  see their combined demand on the international market soar from $28.2 billion in 2021 to $123.2 billion in 2030.

Ecopro BM will invest 7.1 trillion won from this year through 2027 and plans aggressive expansion in both plants and business such as diversifying its lineup of cathode material products. For example, it plans this year to secure a “super gap” in technological competitiveness through boosting R&D capacity.

The company will build an R&D campus on a site of 140,000 square meters at Ochang Science Industrial Complex in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, to develop material technologies related to secondary batteries such those of as metals, precursors, cathode materials and waste batteries. Construction of a think tank is expected to start from the third quarter.

Ecopro Group will soon hold a regular shareholders' meeting and appoint as CEO Song Ho-joon, a former vice president and head of the planning team of Samsung SDI, one of the company's major clients. Song is a management expert who worked for the management support division of Samsung C&T as well as global consulting giants like PricewaterhouseCoopers and Accenture.

Write to Seo-Woo Jang at suwu@hankyung.com