CHENGDU: China’s power battery industry maintained robust growth in the first three quarters of the year, with sales surging 48.9 percent year on year to 786 gigawatt-hours (GWh) as the rapid global expansion of new energy vehicles (NEVs) continues to drive demand, an industry conference highlighted on Wednesday.

The country’s power battery exports exceeded 129 GWh during the period, up 32.7 percent from a year earlier, according to data released at the 2025 World Power Battery Conference, which opened in Yibin City, southwest China’s Sichuan Province, on that same day.

Globally, China has further cemented its leading position in the sector. According to a report released by the Equipment Industry Development Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology at the conference, six Chinese firms were ranked among the top 10 global power battery companies in 2024, collectively accounting for 67.1 percent of the global power battery installation volume, up nearly 4 percentage points from the previous year.

The report showed that the global power battery installation volume reached 894.4 GWh last year, reflecting a sizable annual increase of 27.2 percent. This surge was fueled by the fast growth in global sales and penetration rates of NEVs.

The 2025 World Power Battery Conference has brought together industry representatives, experts as well as over 100 Chinese and foreign companies, including China’s CATL, BYD and France’s Dassault Systèmes.

The annual conference was started in 2022 in Yibin, a major power battery production base that accounts for about 16 percent of China’s total output, according to the organizers. Over the past three years, it has witnessed the launch of over 600 new products and the signing of 249 major projects with a total investment of nearly 300 billion yuan (about 42.4 billion U.S. dollars).