Samsung's EV Battery Business Became Profitable In Q2

Samsung's SDI electric vehicle battery business has become profitable for the first time in the second quarter of 2021. The SD1 arm of Samsung reported $3 billion in sales and an operating profit of over $220 million in the April-June quarter. This was based on data from 15 local brokerage houses. SDI's medium and large battery division which makes devices for EVs and energy storage systems has become profitable as it has managed to clinch more deals from EV makers. It supplies batteries to BMW and Amazon backed EV startup Rivian which will have its R1T and R1S pickup SUVs.

LG chemical is the biggest South Korean vendor

This has coincided with its chief South Korean rival LG Energy Solutions having a poor quarter. It had to replace batteries for several OEMs like Hyundai it has supplied to because of many EVs catching fire. It almost spent $350 million doing so.

LG revealed that the ESS batteries that it produced in its Nanjing factory in China between April 2017 and September 2018 were subject to replacement. Though overall, this could be a good year for LG as it has won a settlement suit with SK Innovation which could yield it as much as $1.74 billion.

The market leader in the EV battery space is CATL which supplies to the Tesla gigafactory in China. It also supplies to many Chinese EV startup's and all major battery vendors are playing catchup to it, including Samsung SDI, LG Energy Solutions and SKI.