Panasonic's profit surged 42% in the second quarter, and the car battery business became the main driving force.

CTOnews.com July 31 news, Panasonic Holdings today released results for the second quarter (first quarter of fiscal year 2024). Driven by the depreciation of the yen and strong sales in the automotive and energy sectors, the company's operating profit last quarter reached 90.37 billion yen (CTOnews.com Note: currently about 4.6 billion yuan), slightly lower than the 91.18 billion yen (currently about 4.641 billion yuan) expected by 11 analysts. But it still achieved a substantial growth of 42%.

In addition, Panasonic Energy, Panasonic's division in charge of automotive battery production, said today that it has begun negotiations with Japanese carmaker Subaru on the establishment of a battery supply partnership for electric vehicles. Panasonic will provide Subaru with cylindrical lithium batteries for vehicles.

Panasonic, which covers consumer electronics, transport robots, sensor cameras and self-checkout systems, is expected to maintain its full-year profit at 430 billion yen (currently about 21.887 billion yuan), compared with an average forecast of 413.96 billion yen (currently about 21.071 billion yuan) for 20 analysts.

CTOnews.com previously reported that Panasonic's chief technology officer, Chuichiro Watanabe, said last month that Panasonic needed to build about four new plants by fiscal year 2030 to meet the growing demand for electric vehicle batteries. Panasonic currently supplies batteries to the US electric car Tesla and is also in talks with Mazda. Panasonic plans to quadruple car battery capacity to 200GWh by fiscal year 2030 compared with fiscal year 2022.