More than half of the EV batteries installed outside China this year came from Chinese companies. In January through September, six Chinese battery makers held 56.4% of the non-China market, up from 43.1% a year earlier, according to data released Nov. 4 by South Korea’s SNE Research. CATL and BYD alone took 44.5%.
The market itself is growing fast. Battery usage in EVs, plug-in hybrids and hybrids sold outside China reached about 426.7 GWh, up 24.7%, faster than the 19.7% growth for the world as a whole. Europe and Asia did the heavy lifting while North America shrank.
Who’s up, who’s down
Here is SNE’s top ten outside China for the first nine months, as also reported by Jiemian, CnEVPost and CarNewsChina:
- CATL: 143.7 GWh, up 46.7%, share 33.7% (from 28.6%)
- LG Energy Solution: 69.8 GWh, down 4.9%, share 16.4% (from 21.5%)
- BYD: 45.9 GWh, up 66.8%, share 10.8% (from 8.0%)
- Panasonic: 35.6 GWh, down 0.8%, share 8.4% (from 10.5%)
- SK On: 28.2 GWh, down 17.9%, share 6.6%
- Gotion: 17.6 GWh, up 153.8%, share 4.1%
- Samsung SDI: 15.0 GWh, down 34.4%, share 3.5%
- SVOLT: 13.1 GWh, up 102.3%, share 3.1%
- CALB: 10.6 GWh, up 88.5%, share 2.5%
- EVE Energy: 9.5 GWh, up 214.6%, share 2.2%
CATL’s growth is mostly a European story. Its usage in Europe rose 35.4% to 96.8 GWh, and in Asia outside China it more than doubled to 27.1 GWh. Its plant in Debrecen, Hungary, started trial production on its first two lines on Sept. 22, which SNE expects to strengthen local supply for customers such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW. CATL already builds cells in Germany at its Thuringia plant, pictured above.
BYD is a different kind of battery company. Its cells go mostly into its own cars, so its share outside China is really a measure of how many BYDs are being sold abroad. Usage grew 68.8% in Europe, 41.0% in Asia and 135.7% in South America. Jiemian, citing BYD’s monthly report, noted the company exported about 170,000 NEVs in October alone, more than double a year earlier. (We saw that in Germany this week, where BYD stays just ahead of Tesla for the year.)
Korea’s big three feel North America
The three Korean suppliers, LG Energy Solution, SK On and Samsung SDI, used a combined 113.0 GWh, down 13.5%, and their share fell from 38.2% to 26.5%. Almost all of the damage came from North America, where their combined usage roughly halved from 56.1 GWh to 28.1 GWh after EV demand weakened. They actually grew in Europe and Asia. All three are shifting capacity toward energy storage, SNE said: LG’s North American ESS lines ran at about 90% utilization in the third quarter, SK On is converting part of its Georgia plant to LFP cells for storage, and Samsung SDI began mass-producing LFP storage cells at its StarPlus Energy plant in October.
Chemistry is moving the same way. Lithium iron phosphate (LFP), the chemistry Chinese makers dominate, rose to 27.7% of the non-China market from 15.8% a year earlier, and to 57.7% worldwide, Jiemian reported from the same SNE data.
The EVX Take
Panasonic is the only Japanese name in the top ten, and its numbers tell you how tied it is to one customer. Its installations were flat while the market grew by a quarter, and SNE says its results were supported by Tesla’s North American volumes. CnEVPost’s read of the global SNE ranking puts 34.9 GWh of Panasonic’s 35.6 GWh in Tesla cars in North America, which is great when Tesla is growing in the US and a problem when it isn’t. For Japan’s battery industry, the next milestones SNE flags are Panasonic’s next-generation cylindrical cells and the conversion of some Kansas lines for data center use. Europe looks harder for Japanese suppliers to break into: CATL is now building locally in Germany and Hungary, and SNE says the EU’s battery passport rules, due in February 2027, will reward makers that can prove where every material came from. On a global basis Panasonic has already slipped to seventh, passed by EVE Energy. For context on how BYD’s car sales feed these numbers, see our October China EV scoreboard.
Sources: SNE Research press release (Nov. 4, 2026); Jiemian; CnEVPost (non-China ranking); CnEVPost (global ranking); CarNewsChina; ITDCW (China Battery Network); Herald Corporation.
— The EVX News team
Featured image: the CATL plant in Arnstadt, Thuringia, Germany (Contemporary Amperex Technology Thuringia GmbH), April 2020. Photo: Giorno2 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped and resized).
