Power Packs for Portable Electronics series, Sixth Edition

The worldwide rechargeable battery market continues to remain concentrated among several top manufacturers. These companies are located in a number of Asian countries, and consist of several large manufacturers including Sanyo, Sony, Matsushita Battery Industrial MBI (Japan), BYD (China) and Samsung SDI and LG Chem (South Korea).

All of these manufacturers are large, vertically integrated electronics companies with aggressive R&D schedules and manufacturing facilities. Adding to this concentration is the complexity of the technology required for battery production and the large investment required for mass production. As a result, companies attempting to enter the market are faced with relatively high barriers to entry, and some are responding to these barriers with a number of innovative strategies, including partnerships and alliances. The resulting mixture of established companies and newcomers should provide the industry with substantial choices over the next several years.

The company rankings presented in this report represent the most objective data available. Each firm examined presents their financial information and output in a variety of different formats which make it difficult to determine the exact definition of sales and output for each company. Many of the companies report production capacity as opposed to actual cell production. Others use the term ""cell production"" and ""battery production""interchangeably. One cell can be sold as a single battery unit, or six cells can be sold as a battery pack. This ambiguity allows each company to report their financial results in a way that best reflects their market position.

The battery chemistries covered in this section include lithium-ion (Li-ion), nickel metal Hydride (NiMH) and nickel cadmium (NiCd). The market for lithium polymer (Lipolymer) is still too small to properly quantify separately by company, and will be included with the Li-ion category.

The majority of worldwide Li-ion and battery production takes place in Japan, South Korea and China.

• Table I -1 - Worldwide Battery Manufacturer Ranking by Company Li-ion
• Table I -2 - Worldwide Battery Manufacturer Ranking by Company LiMH
• Table I -3 - Worldwide Battery Manufacturer Ranking by Company NiCd