Lithium Ion Batteries Drive Sany's 3-Year Plan for 1.5x Sales Gain

摘要

Over the next three years, Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. plans to expand its compact rechargeable battery business by 50 percent. The global market for compact rechargeable batteries in FY2002 reached about ￥620 billion. Sanyo Electric has nearly half of the global market with combined sales of nickel cadmium (Ni-Cd), nickel metal hydride (Ni-MH) and lithium ion batteries, including lithium polymer batteries, totaling ￥270 billion in terras of actual sales in FY2002. The company predicts that worldwide demand in FY2005 will reach around ￥700 billion. Sanyo's target is sales of ￥400 billion and a double-digit increase in profits, says Mitsuru Homma, Officer of Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. and President of Mobile Energy Co. The company thus aims to secure control of more than half of the battery market. In April 2003, Sanyo Electric reorganized its corporate structure and established a new structure based on business units. Under this organizational reform, Sanyo divided Soft Energy Co. into two new companies. Soft Energy previously handled compact rechargeable batteries, photovoltaic cells and compressors. The two newly formed companies are the Mobile Energy Co., which is in charge of primary batteries, compact rechargeable batteries and battery-applied products, and Clean Energy Co., which deals with photovoltaic cells and compressors. Sanyo put these two companies under the new Component Group, which also includes the Semiconductor Co. and the Electronic Device Co.