Taiwan's Battery Production Value to Surpass NT$100 B. in 2012: IEK

Taipei, Dec. 2, 2011 (CENS)--The production value of Taiwan's battery industry is expected to rise 12.4% in 2011, compared to 3% for printed circuit board (PCB) and -4.4% for passive component segments, according to the Industrial Economics & Knowledge Center (IEK) of Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute.

Thanks to strong demands from tablet PCs, Ultrabooks, smartphones and power tools, the battery industry on the island is expected to continue to grow 15% in 2012, generating more than NT$100 billion (US$3.3 billion) revenue.

The top-2 winners in the local battery industry this year are Simplo Technology Co., Ltd. and Dynapack International Technology Corp., both suppliers for Apple's iPads and Macbooks, with the former registering cumulative earnings per share (EPS) of NT$9.33 (US$0.3) in the first three quarters, and the latter NT$8.38 (US$0.28).

IEK's senior analyst H.L. Lu says Taiwan is expected to turn out NT$92.54 billion (US$3.1 billion) in revenue from the battery industry this year, and the value is expected to rise to NT$106.4 billion (US$3.55 billion) due to higher penetration of lithium-ion batteries.

The increasing popularity of tablet PCs and launching of Ultrabook models have been driving demand for lithium-ion polymer batteries. International cell makers have been aggressively expanding capacities to meet the flooding demand. ATL of China, for example, recently completed construction of a factory in Fujian Province of China. Samsung SDI has shifted its planned investment from cylindrical batteries to lithium-ion products. These makers' efforts, Lu said, will ease the slight supply tension in the lithium-ion battery industry.

Currently, Lu furthered, prices of lithium-ion polymer batteries are still unpopular. The IEK data show that in the third quarter, the average price for each watt-hour of an 18650 cylindrical lithium-ion battery is US$0.2, compared to US$0.4 of a lithium-ion polymer counterpart. In addition, the prices of cylindrical batteries (Ni-Cd or lithium-ion) are expected to slide due to oversupply and gradually weakening demand from conventional notebook PCs.