[비즈한국] LG Energy Solution373220 has officially announced its plan to expand its non-electric vehicle (EV) business at its regular general shareholders' meeting. At the 6th regular general shareholders' meeting held at LG Twin Towers in Seoul on the 20th, CEO Kim Dong-myung stated, "We plan to build a stable and balanced business structure by increasing the share of ESS (Energy Storage System) and new businesses from the current level of approximately 20% to the mid-40% range in the future." Along with this, the company presented the advancement of its business portfolio, the strengthening of product and future competitiveness, and the securing of a foundation for generating free cash flow as its key strategies.
The backdrop for placing the expansion of ESS at the forefront is a shift in the profit structure. LG Energy Solution's consolidated revenue for 2025 was 23.6718 trillion won, a 7.6% decrease from the previous year, but its operating profit increased by 134.1% to 134.6 billion won. The company attributed the rise in operating profit to "operation focused on high-margin products, improvement in material cost ratios, and the full-scale start of ESS production in North America."
Regarding the EV market at the shareholders' meeting, CEO Kim revealed plans to expand the mid-to-low-end lineup, introduce new form factors, and widen the scope of response to electrification demands, such as EREV and HEV. He explained that the ESS business would be grown "based on rapidly building a local production foundation and leveraging our North American operational experience and system integration (SI)-based turnkey solution competitiveness." As for new business sectors, he identified humanoid robots, UAM (Urban Air Mobility), and ships, while also announcing plans to expand business into software and services.
The expansion of North American production bases follows the same trajectory. On the 18th, LG Energy Solution announced that it would increase its North American ESS production bases to 5 locations. In addition to three independent factories in Holland, Michigan, Lansing, Michigan, and NextStar Energy in Canada, the company is expanding its ESS production system to include the Tennessee plant of its joint venture with GM, Ultium Cells, and the Honda joint venture plant. The company stated that it plans to expand its global ESS production capacity to over 60GWh by the end of this year, with North American production capacity set to grow to over 50GWh.
LG Energy Solution views the global ESS market as being in a phase of structural growth this year. The company set its new ESS order target for this year at a level exceeding the 90GWh recorded last year. At the shareholders' meeting, CEO Kim said, "We will achieve a balanced business structure between electric and non-electric vehicles."