LOS ANGELES — Lithium-ion batteries will displace nickel-metal hydrides (NiMH) as the rechargeable battery of choice in cell phones and personal computers this year, and lithium-polymers are hot on their trail, according to Hideo Takeshita, research vice president of the Institute of Information Technology, addressing the Power2002 conference here.
While 740 million lithium-ion cells were shipped in 2002, lithium-polymer technology offers greater storage capacity and its costs are approaching lithium-ion's, Takeshita said. In addition, lithium-polymer technology can assume compact, oddly-shaped form factors, which helps explain its increased use. Twenty million lithium-polymer cells were used in 2001, increasing to 50 million in 2002, Takeshita said.
Sony Corp. is currently the market's primary supplier of lithium-polymer batteries, but Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. and other suppliers are coming onstream, and cell phone makers Ericsson and Nokia are lining up as users, Takeshita said.
Lithium polymer is a gel that requires curing, and thus requires a longer manufacturing cycle than lithium-ion cells, Takeshita said. But demand has reached a critical mass, and suppliers are responding, Takeshita said.
Two factors driving increased lithium-polymer usage are cell phone demand, with each of the world market's roughly 400- to 500-million handsets requiring two cells, and longer talk time, which pushes up the cost of rechargeable batteries, Takeshita said.
Close crossover
Lithium-ion batteries with capacity in the 1.8-to-2.0 ampere-hour range are priced roughly at $2.40, and demand is increasing for lithium-ions with higher 2.2 ampere-hour capacities, with prices closer to $2.80, Takeshita said. That's close to the crossover point for lithium-polymer batteries, which are priced close to $3.00 for a battery with 2.4 ampere-hours of capacity, he said.
The 15 percent annual growth rates seen by lithium rechargeable batteries in the 1990s is over, but a 4 percent growth rate will take sales to $6 billion in 2010, Takeshita said.
"Theoretically, this should be a profitable business," he said, with a pessimism cultivated by declining prices.
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