LG Energy Solution, Samsung SDI, and SK On — South Korea's three battery giants — together supply approximately 30% of the global electric vehicle battery market.

 

"South Korea's battery industry doesn't just power its own electric vehicles — it powers most of the world's.

LG Energy Solution, Samsung SDI, and SK On — South Korea's three battery giants — together supply approximately 30% of the global electric vehicle battery market. Their cells power Volkswagen, General Motors, Ford, Hyundai, Stellantis, and dozens of other manufacturers. The South Korean battery industry is as structurally central to the global EV transition as Saudi Arabia was to the oil economy — a concentrated supplier that the rest of the world depends on.

The scale of investment in maintaining this position is extraordinary. LG Energy Solution alone is spending over $30 billion expanding battery manufacturing capacity in the US, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Samsung SDI is building gigafactories in Hungary and Indiana. SK On has plants running or under construction in Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Hungary.

The geographic expansion reflects a new commercial reality. EV manufacturers — under political pressure from the US Inflation Reduction Act and European subsidy programmes — need batteries produced locally, not imported. The Korean battery companies are following their customers, building factories wherever the subsidies and demand are strongest.

South Korea is also investing heavily in next-generation battery chemistry. All three companies have solid-state battery programmes targeting commercialisation in the late 2020s. The race is not just to maintain market share in lithium-ion — it is to own the technology that replaces it.

The country that built the world's ships and screens is now building the world's batteries.

Source: Korea Battery Industry Association (KBIA), 2023

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