Beijing time November 1 news, according to foreign media reports, due to the tesla electric car, and expects the future demand for electric vehicles will be very strong, Panasonic plans to invest $1.6 billion, for Tesla to produce car batteriesand power grid batteries. As a result, Panasonic cut its annual profit forecast on Monday.
Panasonic is in the midst of a strategic shift away from the consumer market, where it competed with rivals with low-cost electronics to win consumers' favor. Today, panasonic is targeting more corporate-level customers as a supplier of car batteries and other high-tech products.
"There is a strong demand for electric vehicle batteries not only from Tesla, but also from other automakers, and we think the rechargeable battery business will have the biggest upward momentum," Panasonic CEO KazuhiroTsuga said in an earnings briefing. Therefore, we are actively preparing and making strategic investments."
Ahead of the briefing, Panasonic said operating profit in the July-September period fell nearly 40 percent from a year earlier under U.S. accounting standards, nearly 14 percent below analysts' estimates.
The company also cut its profit forecast for the year to March 31 to 245 billion yen ($2.33 billion) from its previous forecast of 310 billion yen under international financial reporting standards (IFRS) to be adopted next year. That was below the 297.3 billion yen forecast by 16 global sell-side analysts, according to Thomson Reuters Starmine.
Panasonic blamed the recent weakness of the yen. It also cited an additional 12 billion yen in fixed costs, mostly related to Tesla's $5 billion "Gigafactory."
The company said the previous plant investment was likely to result in an operating profit loss for panasonic's battery unit that year.
"If Tesla sales go well, demand will soon exceed our production capacity," Tsuga said. "This signals that we may need additional investment in the near future."
Panasonic, which has also been focusing on home energy efficiency systems, said it could also make solar cells for Tesla. Panasonic of the United States said that the plant under construction after the acquisition of SolarCity will begin production in 2017.
Panasonic's expanding battery division, in contrast to peer SONY, cut its annual profit forecast on Monday because of losses from the sale of its battery business to Murata Manufacturing.
SONY Battery, which sold the world's first lithium-ion battery in 1991, has been losing money because it cannot supply batteries to major smartphone makers.
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