C&D Technologies, Inc. announced the investment in an expanded manufacturing facility, product portfolio and management team in Shanghai, China.
According to C&D, Asia and the Chinese market in particular, present the company with a tremendous opportunity for growth. While C&D states that it has the leading market share for stationary battery power in North America, the Asian market is highly fragmented with many global and domestic companies competing in this dynamic, growing marketplace. Even with the global economic slowdown, the market for industrial batteries in China is expected to continue its growth this year, fueled by the continuing investment in infrastructure for telecommunications and data centers, as well as energy generation and transmission across the country.
The fastest growth is now expected to be in the telecom and energy markets as the Chinese government economic stimulus efforts focus heavily on expansion of basic infrastructure throughout the country. In the telecommunications market, China is in the initial stages of the introduction of 3G wireless technology, and expansion of these networks will be a primary objective over the next several years. As the reliability of the Chinese electrical grid is lacking, highly reliable back-up power for wireless communications is essential. The Chinese government has recently assigned third-generation mobile phone licenses to three large domestic carriers, China Mobile Ltd., China Unicom Ltd., and China Telecom Corp., in a long-awaited step that is expected to prompt over $40 billion in spending on new equipment, which includes batteries as an essential element. Estimates of this expanded battery market for wireless telecom alone, are sighted in the hundreds of millions of US dollars. Third-generation, or 3G, technology supports Web surfing, wireless video and other services which are essential to the nation’s continued development.
To capitalize on these expanding market opportunities, C&D Technologies is creating a new business unit, its first outside of North America, which will comprise local manufacturing, engineering, marketing and sales. C&D-Asia will leverage C&D Technologies new state-of-the art battery manufacturing plant which was opened in early 2008, located in the Pudong region of China, just west of Shanghai. Within this new facility, C&D Technologies will establish a Development laboratory and a local Engineering team to leverage its recent development of advanced batteries for telecommunications and uninterrupted power supply (UPS) systems in North America, transitioning these designs and related manufacturing technologies into the Asian marketplace and producing them locally to provide cost-effective, high technology solutions for Asian and European customers. These new designs will include the msEndur II® 2V VRLA ’green battery system’, and the new C&D True Front Access VRLA battery system, adapted to the local needs of the Asian marketplace.
