The logo of SK Innovation is seen in front of its headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, February 3, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
SEOUL, Nov 4 (Reuters) – The battery unit of South Korea’s SK Innovation Co Ltd (096770.KS) plans to invest $2.53 billion to build a new electric vehicle (EV) battery factory in China, China’s local government backed Yancheng News reported on Thursday.
SK Innovation’s wholly-owned battery subsidiary SK On, which supplies electric car batteries to Ford Motor Co (F.N), Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) and Hyundai Motor Co (005380.KS) among others, has battery production sites in the United States, Hungary, China and South Korea.
The company had said in September it planned to build a new battery factory in China with an initial investment of 1.2 trillion won ($1.01 billion).
“SK On has been building (battery) factories in the United States, China and Hungary as a growth strategy after securing battery orders in the global market,” SK On said in a statement.
SK On said last week that it has an order backlog of about 1.6 terawatt hours (TWh) of batteries worth about 220 trillion won, which could power about 23 million electric vehicles.
($1 = 1,183.4000 won)
Reporting by Heekyong Yang and Brenda Goh; Editing by Kim Coghill
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