Lithium ion secondary battery market to expand by 5.5 times in 3 years

The global lithium ion secondary market is expected to grow 5.5 times (capacity basis) by 2020. The SNE Research, a research institute specializing in professional research on the field of rechargeable batteries and electric vehicles, announced on Monday that lithium ion secondary battery market is projected to increase from 98.5 GWh in 2016 to 544.2 GWh in 2020. The market size is also forecasted to grow from 15.9 billion U.S. dollars (approximately 18.7620 trillion won) to 54.3 billion dollars (64.740 trillion won) during the same period based on the cell price.

The lithium ion secondary battery was first released by Sony in 1991 and has seen massive growth led by Japanese companies such as Panasonic and Hitachi centering on information technology (IT) device industry. Since 2000, Korean companies such as LG Chemical, Samsung SDI and Chinese manufacturers including ATL and BYD have entered the market. With the development of high capacity battery technologies, lithium ion batteries have become widely used to automobiles and energy storage.

Battery materials market is growing as well along with the growth of lithium ion rechargeable battery. The lithium ion secondary batteries are constructed from four primary materials mainly composed of four materials including anode, cathode, electrolyte, and separator.

Traditionally, Japanese makers have been leading the material market based on technological prowess and now South Korean companies are rapidly chasing them. The SNE Research analyzed that Chinese companies have been late movers but now they are growing quickly thanks to the recent rapid growth of Chinese rechargeable battery market.

Saem-Mool Lee evey@donga.com