SK Innovation, a latecomer to the electric vehicle battery market, joined the ranks of the world’s top 10 players in terms of sales, industry data showed on April 4.

According to the data by SNE Research, a market researcher on renewable energy, SK Innovation, also the country’s leading oil refiner, reported 206 megawatt hours of capacity sold in the first two months of 2019. This put it in 10th place among battery suppliers.

The data is based on EV batteries that were actually used and sold in the market.

Its larger local rival LG Chem came in fourth with a capacity of 1.3 GWh sold during the cited period. Samsung SDI, another EV battery maker, had 414 MWh of capacity to come in sixth, the data showed.

SK Innovation’s jump came on the back of strong sales of Kia Motors’ Niro EVs and its plug-in hybrid vehicle version.

Chinese EV battery makers still dominated the world’s EV battery market, with CATL, BYD, Guoxuan and two other Chinese players all making the top list, the data showed.

By Ram Garikipati and newswires (ram@heraldcorp.com)