Chinese Battery Makers Now Hold 72.8% of the Global EV Battery Market

New figures from SNE Research show how concentrated the EV battery supply base has become. Across January-July 2026 installations, the seven Chinese companies in the global top 10 held a combined 72.8% of the world's EV battery market. CATL remained the clear leader at 39.9%, a share it has steadily built from 38.0% in 2024 and 39.2% across full-year 2025. BYD stayed second at 14.7%, although its growth has cooled even as the overall market keeps expanding. Together the two account for roughly one in every two EV batteries installed worldwide this year. The Korean suppliers continued to lose ground. LG Energy Solution grew installations 8.4% to 52.6 GWh in the first half of 2026, yet its global share still slipped to about 8.6%, and the company is steering new capacity toward energy-storage projects rather than EV packs. SK On saw volumes fall 6.7% over the same period. What does this mean if you buy EV parts across borders? The parts that surround the battery pack - cooling plates, module structures, BMS harnesses, high-voltage connectors and pyro fuses - are manufactured deep inside this same Chinese supply ecosystem. Sourcing them from China is no longer a cost play only; it is where the engineering capacity and volume actually sit, which translates into shorter lead times and wider part coverage for independent repairers and distributors. Two practical checks before you commit to a supplier: confirm which cell maker the parts were validated against (pack-adjacent components are usually certified per battery platform), and ask for the conformity documents early, because certification scope is the most common cause of customs and warranty disputes on battery-related parts. We will keep tracking how the 2026 share battle settles out as full-year data comes in.