LG Energy Solution drops to third on global market for EV battery in Q1

South Korea's LG Energy Solution Ltd. in the first quarter fell to third in the global share of electric vehicle (EV) batteries in use spanning all EV models and plug-in hybrid and hybrid EVs, with China's BYD pushing it out of the No. 2 spot.

Chinese giant Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) was No. 1.

The Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province-based market research company SNE Research on Wednesday said global EV battery use in the first quarter was 1,330 gigawatt hours, up 38.6% from the same quarter last year.

CATL took the top spot with a market share of 35% and EV battery use of 46.6 GWh, up 35.9%. SNE Research said this company's performance apparently showed high demand for CATL's batteries on the Chinese commercial vehicle market for models like the Tesla Model 3 and Y, SAIC Motor's MG Mulan and Guangzhou Automobile Group's Aion Y.

No. 2 in the rankings was BYD with 10.4%. The company saw its EV battery use leap 115.5% to surpass LG Energy Solution for second.

"Rising demand on the Chinese market is due to price competitiveness through the creation of vertically integrated SCM (supply chain management) such as battery self-supply and vehicle manufacturing," SNE Research said.

LG Energy Solution's use was 19.3 GWh, down 37.5%, but market share dipped just a tenth of a percentage point to 14.5%. The company supplies batteries for Tesla's Model 3 and Y, Ford Mustang Mach E, and Volkswagen ID.3 and 4.

Fourth-place Panasonic had a market share of 9% as its EV battery use grew 37.5% to 11.9 GWh.

Fifth was SK On, whose use was 7.1 GWh and market share 7.1%, followed by Samsung SDI Co. with 6.5 GWh and 6.5%.

Write to Sungsu Bae at baebae@hankyung.com