CONTEMPORARY Amperex Technology Co., China’s second-biggest maker of batteries for electric vehicles, is planning an initial public offering (IPO) to fund an expansion as the government pushes to boost the sale of plug-in cars.

    The company plans to list on China’s over-the-counter stock market as soon as possible, the company’s marketing director Neill Yang said in an interview. The maker of lithium-ion batteries will use the funds raised to build new factories, with Yang forecasting as much as a 10-fold increase in sales to 100 billion yuan (US$15 billion) by 2020.

    Battery makers are expanding production capacity to support rising sales of plug-in vehicles, as China overtook the U.S. to become the world’s largest EV market with a tripling in deliveries last year. Global demand for vehicle batteries may jump fivefold by 2020 and China probably will account for more than half of global capacity by then, according to estimates by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

    “The new-energy vehicle market is growing faster than we had expected,” Yang said last week. “We now have plenty of orders to fill because the demand is shifting toward the best companies in the industry.”

    Contemporary Amperex Technology had capacity of 2.4 gigawatt-hours last year and plans to as much as triple that this year, Yang said. The company has two plants in China and will start building a third domestic factory soon, he said. Its local customers include BAIC Motor and Geely Automobile Holdings.

    The company is preparing to build its first overseas plant in Europe and will pursue business with U.S. carmakers, Yang said. The company’s three European customers include BMW AG, and it’s trying to woo more global automakers, he said.

    Contemporary Amperex Technology was founded in 2011 by TDK Corp.-owned Amperex Technology Co. The company may pass Warren Buffett-backed BYD Co. to become the largest Chinese battery maker in 2018, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.(SD-Agencies)