SUNWODA Subsidiary to Go Public Independently, Values at $4.9 Billion

On July 15th, SUNWODA released a proposal regarding the spin-off of its subsidiary, SUNWODA EVB, for listing on the ChiNext board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

SUNWODA EVB, as an independent platform for the research, production, and sales of new energy vehicle power batteries, will achieve an independent listing. After this spin-off is completed, the equity structure of SUNWODA will not change and it will still maintain control over SUNWODA EVB.

As early as June this year, SUNWODA EVB completed a new round B financing of ¥1.65 billion ($230 million), with investments from some institutions including CCB Asset Management, China Construction Bank Leading Navigation, Chongqing Manufacturing, etc. The post-investment valuation has reached ¥35.5 billion ($4.9 billion).

In fact, prior to this, SUNWODA EVB had already completed multiple rounds of external financing, with a total amount exceeding ¥10 billion ($138 million). Now, it has 70 shareholders behind it, including new forces in the automotive industry “Wei Xiaoli”, and other prestigious financial backers.

In 2011, SUNWODA became the first listed company on the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) focusing on the “research, manufacturing, and sales of lithium battery modules as a whole.” However, with the slowdown in demand in the consumer electronics sector, SUNWODA began to shift its focus to the field of power batteries and once again caught onto a trend. Currently, the company’s main business covers three major sectors: consumer lithium battery business, electric vehicle battery business, and energy storage system business.

SUNWODA has experienced explosive growth in its performance within a few short years. Especially in the power battery business, revenue increased from ¥428 million ($60 million) in 2020 to ¥12.687 billion ($1.76 billion) in 2022. At the same time, the company’s consumer electronics business income also maintained steady growth, with consumer battery revenue exceeding ¥30 billion ($4.2 billion) in 2022.

SEE ALSO: CATL Rival Sunwoda EVB Release New Battery to Support 1,000km Cruising Range

The power battery industry report released by SNE Research, a new energy market research institution, shows that the global usage of power batteries reached 237.6 GWh from January to May 2023, with a year-on-year growth of 52.3%.

The top ten battery companies are Ningde Times, BYD, LG Energy Solution, Panasonic, SK Innovation, CALB, Samsung SDI, Gotion Hi-Tech, EVE Energy, and SUNWODA. Chinese companies occupy six seats.

The latest data shows that the cumulative installed capacity of power batteries in China for the first five months of this year is 119.2GWh, while the cumulative production of power batteries is 233.5GWh. It can be clearly seen that the production of power batteries far exceeds demand. Against this backdrop, battery manufacturers are bound to face fierce competition in the future, and how to deal with market competition and technological challenges becomes a difficult problem.