July 20, 2004

By: Curtis Moran
Website: http://www.1st-in-batteries.com

Several mobile phone battery pack suppliers, such as Hypercell, believe that lithium polymer would win over50+% of the market by 2007

Several mobile phone battery pack suppliers, such as Hypercell, believe that lithium polymer would win over50+ percent of the market by 2007.

The technology has yet to mature and manufacturing costs are still prohibitive, but a growing numbers of makers, nonetheless, believe that lithium polymer batteries will be the next main trend. This new battery type will slowly displace Li-ion and NiMH, obtaining more than 50 percent of the market by 2007.

One of several mainland China companies investing in lithium polymer battery packs is Hypercell Power Source Technology Co. Ltd. This high-tech enterprise specializes in research, development, manufacture and marketing of Li-ion and lithium polymer battery cell and packs. Its parent company and investor, Henan Huanyu Group, is a rechargeable battery professional with over 20 years of experience in the line.

Hypercell runs a 20,000-square-meter, ISO 9001:2000-certified factory in Henan province. It has a daily capacity of 200,000 units. The company has branches in Hong Kong, the United States, Germany, Mexico, Korea and Russia. Export-bound battery packs pass CE and UL standards.

Vice general manager Zou Wei-ping shared with Telecom Products the company's targets for lithium polymer battery development.

Briefly describe to us the status of your company's development and production of lithium polymer batteries? We entered this line in January 2002. We invested $1.2 million in an in-house-developed coil wiring technology is similar to that used by Sanyo and Sony, to develop lithium polymer cells.

Hypercell's lithium battery project has been nominated as a key high-tech project of the country's 'Torch Program'. Last year we released our lithium polymer mobile phone battery packs with 2Ah capacity and 3mm thickness.

To date, we have more than 30 battery pack models for mobile phones and 12 battery packs for electric automobiles. The highest capacity for mobile phones is 2Ah, and 100 Ah for electric automobiles.

What is the significance of the release of lithium polymer battery packs to the market? The mobile phone market is evolving very fast, with new models that feature more and advanced applications being released constantly. This heightens demand for cleaner, bigger-capacity, but lighter and more compact, battery packs.

The sector has moved from NiCd to NiMH, and currently the shift is toward Li-ion. However, with the entry of lithium polymer, we would see another migration unfolding. The current market share of lithium polymer is less than 10 percent, but we expect that percentage to grow to well over 50 percent by 2007. For more information, see batteries for cellular phones.

About The Author:

Curtis Moran is a successful author and regular contributor to http://www.1st-in-batteries.com.  A great resource for batteries of all kinds including camcorder, laptop, cell phone and more.