Panasonic released its 2020 financial report: the battery division turned losses into profits!

The Panasonic Group released its 2020 financial report (April 2020 to March 2021) on May 10. During the period, the Panasonic Group achieved sales of 6.70 trillion yen (approximately 395.1 billion yuan), a decrease of 10.6% from the previous fiscal year; realized net profit of 165 billion yen, a decrease of 26.9% from the previous fiscal year. It is understood that the Panasonic Group's sales are below 7 trillion yen for the first time in 25 years since the 1995 fiscal year. Among them, the sales of the battery division of the Panasonic Group dropped by 10% to 1,339.4 billion yen. However, compared with the previous year, the operating profit of the business unit turned from a loss to a profit, from a loss of 46.6 billion yen to a profit of 10.9 billion yen. Regarding the profitability of Panasonic’s Battery Division, Panasonic’s Chief Financial Officer and CFO Umeda Hirowa said: “The value announced in 2020 was negative, but it eventually landed on a positive number. This is due to the continuous improvement of in-vehicle equipment and Tesla’s Related businesses have achieved profitability.” In terms of quarters, Panasonic’s 2020 fiscal year, although the first quarter of the new crown epidemic caused a significant loss, but from the second quarter, the car sales resumed and realized a turnaround from a loss to a profit. Maintained at a level higher than the previous year, thus achieving full-year profitability. Umeda Hirowa further pointed out that Panasonic predicts that in fiscal year 2121 (April 2021 to March 2022), the profit of the battery business unit will be 50 billion yen, because in-vehicle equipment and in-vehicle batteries are expected to increase sales and profits. The author noticed that Panasonic is good at nickel-cobalt-aluminum (NVA) technology and silicon-based anode material technology. The cobalt content of cylindrical batteries in cooperation with Tesla has been significantly reduced, and the joint venture with Toyota to build a prismatic battery factory, the overall supply system is relatively closed and stability. In the whole year of 2020, the relevant data of the global power battery market released by SNE shows that the global installed capacity of power batteries on electric vehicles will reach 137GWh in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 17%. Among them, Panasonic's installed capacity in 2020 is 25GWh, a year-on-year decrease of 10.71%, and its market share is 18.25%. Panasonic ranks third, far behind CATL and LG New Energy. Panasonic plans to expand its Gigafactory1 joint venture plant with Tesla by 10% to 39GWh in 2021, and is considering building a large joint venture battery in Norway with Equinor and Hydro. factory. In addition, for the new generation of cylindrical battery 46800 that Tesla is developing, Umeda stated that it will establish a verification production line for it in Japan in 2021.