TOKYO — Panasonic Corp mentioned on Tuesday it expects its battery enterprise supplying Tesla to be worthwhile this fiscal yr, and raised its full-year working revenue forecast by greater than half.
After a number of years of manufacturing troubles and delays at Tesla, Panasonic is starting to see its decade-old partnership with the U.S. firm turn into a revenue driver.
Panasonic introduced final yr that it was growing a brand new battery cell designed by Tesla, one that may assist Tesla halve battery prices and ramp up battery manufacturing 100-fold by 2030.
“From the subsequent enterprise yr we wish to finish the query of whether or not (the Tesla) enterprise might be worthwhile or not,” Chief Monetary Officer Hirokazu Umeda mentioned on a name.
The Japanese electronics conglomerate can also be planning so as to add a brand new manufacturing line on the Nevada manufacturing unit it owns with Tesla, and is constructing a lithium-ion battery enterprise in Norway in a bid to faucet European carmakers.
Panasonic plans to start out check manufacturing for the brand new line — for Tesla’s 4680 battery — within the monetary yr starting April 1, Umeda mentioned.
The Japanese firm, which will get income from product traces starting from bicycles to hair dryers, mentioned it was additionally benefiting from pandemic-driven shopping for of dwelling home equipment and gross sales of 5G tools. However these had been offset by weak point in companies resembling in-flight leisure techniques.
Its new forecast of 230 billion yen ($2.2 billion) for the yr to end-March — up from 150 billion yen — continues to be 22% under the earlier yr.
Greater than a 3rd of that revenue will come from gross sales of home equipment.
Below outgoing Chief Govt Kazuhiro Tsuga, Panasonic has shifted away from its low-profit dwelling electronics enterprise to concentrate on housing fixtures, automotive electronics and batteries for electrical autos.
The corporate introduced in November that Tsuga would step down in April after 9 years on the helm and that Yuki Kusumi, the present head of its automotive enterprise, would take over.
For the three months ending Dec. 31 the corporate posted a 30% rise in working revenue to 130.2 billion yen, above a Refinitiv estimate of 74.6 billion yen from 4 analysts.