Lithium Battery Industry Shakeout: What Makes Xinwangda Stand Out at Its Coming of Age?

Ask AI · Why did Xinwangda choose the high-end route instead of quick money from knockoff phones?

Article by | Ma Lei

Editor | Huang Dalu

Design | Zhen Youmei

In March 2026, Xinwangda announced three key developments:

• Mass production of semi-solid batteries achieved, supplying mainstream automakers;
• Full solid-state battery prototype line connected, plans to start pilot testing within the year;
• Listing on Hong Kong Stock Exchange approved, funds to be fully invested in overseas expansion.

This battery company, which started in Shiyan Street, Bao’an District, Shenzhen, is about to enter its third decade. Over the years, it has experienced industry cycles and public opinion storms but has always remained focused on the challenging, long-term, and steady-return deep water areas.

After thirty years of iteration, China’s lithium battery sector has seen giants rise and new entrants retreat, with many companies failing due to impatience and shortsightedness. Xinwangda’s survival and continuous growth fundamentally reflect a discipline of choice and perseverance.

To understand this company, we must first go back to its origin: between the quick money in low-end markets and the tough terrain of high-end fields, why did it choose the hardest path? This choice is the underlying logic that has driven its cycle-crossing over the past thirty years.

Quick money or hard work?

In March 2009, when Wang Huawen joined Xinwangda, he probably didn’t expect to stay with this battery company for over a decade.

From roles in R&D, manufacturing, quality, to supply chain management, now as Vice President of Xinwangda Power, his cross-disciplinary experience also reflects the company’s early talent diversity and flexibility.

Before that, Wang Huawen worked in education. He still remembers the afternoon he received a call from HR, at Xinwangda’s headquarters in Shiyan, Bao’an. The interviewer was one of Xinwangda’s founders, Wang Mingwang.

The interview went smoothly. Wang Mingwang appreciated his pragmatic rigor, logical thinking, and communication skills. Wang Huawen then moved from the podium to the bustling production line as a secretary to the CEO, stepping into the turbulent Chinese lithium industry.

At that time, China’s electronics manufacturing was in a wild growth phase, with explosive growth of “five-in-one” knockoff phones in Huaqiangbei, shipping hundreds of thousands daily from Shenzhen worldwide, fueling short-term prosperity in supporting industries.

For local electronics factories, as long as they could buy cells, weld protection circuits, and assemble shells, they could make huge profits. This chaos attracted a lot of capital and new entrants.

“Back then, many factories built plants just to do this, with huge volumes,” Wang Huawen recalls. Around 2009, Xinwangda’s annual revenue was about 600-700 million yuan, mainly producing mobile and laptop battery modules, primarily OEM/ODM, with self-developed BMS and integrated processes, and was one of the industry standard setters.

Although ranking in the top five industry-wide, this scale was still thin amid the huge market dividend.

For Xinwangda at that time, choosing the low-end knockoff market meant rapid scale expansion and short-term high profits; betting on the high-end market meant bearing risks of large R&D investments, long cycles, and high entry barriers.

Quick money or hard work?

While the knockoff market was large, its low technical threshold and severe homogenization meant long-term focus would only drain R&D resources without building core competitiveness. When the era of smart devices truly arrived, this low-end capacity would not only be unprofitable but also become a huge sunk cost for transformation.

Based on this judgment, Xinwangda’s management made a decisive decision: firmly avoid low-end knockoff phones and concentrate all resources on high-end smartphones.

This was a strategic gamble. At that time, the high-end mobile market was almost monopolized by international brands. For Chinese companies to break through, it was far more difficult than imagined.

A 72-hour ticket to entry

In 2003, Xinwangda had a clear goal: win high-end phone battery orders from Philips and break the international brands’ monopoly on high-end supply chains. But under the industry environment then, this goal faced insurmountable barriers.

At that time, Philips, a global mobile giant, held deep-seated biases against Chinese local battery assembly plants. They believed Chinese companies couldn’t make high-end brands, only low-end assembly. To enter the global high-end supply chain, their quality management, engineering understanding, and core product competitiveness were far from meeting standards.

Despite multiple sample deliveries with excellent test data, Philips remained skeptical: good samples didn’t prove large-scale, consistent mass production capability, a common dilemma for Chinese electronics firms then.

The turning point arose from an accidental supply chain crisis. Xinwangda’s ability to seize this opportunity was partly luck, but also owed to prior preparation and accumulation.

At that time, a key Philips global battery supplier suddenly faced material shortages, risking supply interruption. For a consumer electronics giant, supply chain halt meant astronomical daily losses.

Xinwangda, having studied Philips’ product standards and stocked the same model raw materials, obtained an emergency order—an opportunity and a gamble for the company eager to break into high-end markets.

“It was a coincidence. Our warehouse just happened to have over 70,000 sets of raw materials for the same model as Philips,” Wang Huawen recalls Wang Mingwang sharing this story.

Faced with this huge emergency order, Xinwangda had to deliver in a very short time, racing against the clock to ensure quality and yield.

This was their only chance to break Philips’ prejudice and prove their capability.

Wang Mingwang personally went to the production line, meticulously overseeing each process and node. Since they had already studied Philips’ engineering files and quality standards thoroughly during order negotiations, and prepared special fixtures in advance, they laid the foundation for rapid delivery.

What normally took a week or more, Xinwangda’s team worked around the clock—day and night—delivering 70,000 high-end batteries on time, with perfect accuracy.

This “72-hour surprise attack” shocked Philips’ top management and forced international brands to recognize the strength of Chinese local battery companies for the first time.

Subsequently, Philips’ VP of overseas business flew to Shenzhen to thank Wang Mingwang and his team over dinner. The benefits were profound: Xinwangda received Philips’ top treatment of “direct exemption from inspection” for three consecutive years, and the event sparked an internal ideological shift, making “high quality” a core value of the company.

To solidify its high-end manufacturing foundation, Xinwangda used the Philips order as an opportunity to undertake painful system restructuring.

By around 2006, few factories understood international quality management systems. Xinwangda recruited high-education talent, built teams with technical and international communication skills, and hired professional consultants.

The new talent enabled Xinwangda to quickly pass ISO9001 quality management certification, fully adopt project management (PM) capabilities, and address gaps in systematic management.

Having tasted the benefits of high-end markets, Xinwangda cut off the low-end route entirely, but this meant continuous R&D investment, strict quality control, higher operating costs, and fiercer market competition.

Later, they also underwent rigorous audits by VP-level executives and engineering experts from Apple, which set the highest global supply chain standards. Through repeated trial and error, they created a stringent system-level quality standard, which, while costly, drove rapid growth.

Xinwangda shed its “assembly factory” label, transforming into a provider of high-end solutions with mastery of core battery system integration and top-tier manufacturing processes.

Huawei’s “devil” audit

While securing top international clients, domestic high-end brands like Huawei also took notice of Xinwangda’s strength. By then, Xinwangda had accumulated certain technical and systemic foundations in high-end consumer batteries, and Huawei’s entry further pushed its modernization.

This transformation was also painful and competitive.

In 2011, on the eve of China’s smartphone explosion, Huawei accelerated its terminal business, demanding increasingly strict supply chain standards. Wang Huawen personally faced Huawei’s rigorous audit, which was dubbed a “devil’s trial,” far exceeding previous experiences.

Huawei dispatched a 15-16 person cross-department expert team for a month-long thorough review, covering product validation, process quality, automation, personnel stability, supply chain management, and strict control. They examined every management detail, leaving no stone unturned.

The most profound and culturally shocking requirement was Huawei’s “PTC (Product Change Notification)” process, which was extremely strict. It broke the then Chinese private enterprises’ flexible production habits: small adjustments in process parameters, changing operators, or minor material swaps could cause system performance fluctuations, affecting product quality and reputation.

Huawei demanded a rigorous PCN system: any material change must be pre-notified with detailed data, demonstrating no impact on quality; internal process changes required risk assessments, validation, and first-piece approval; client changes had to be communicated in writing, with testing and impact analysis, before implementation.

All changes had to be transparently reported to Huawei, subject to supervision and review. This was not just a document but a comprehensive cognitive system.

To implement this, Xinwangda conducted extensive training, translating Huawei’s standards into detailed procedures, which challenged employees’ long-standing habits—a painful internal transformation.

Objectively, Philips cultivated Xinwangda’s quality awareness; Apple shaped its top-tier hardware engineering; Huawei thoroughly reformed its software management, transforming it from a manual workshop into a modern industrial enterprise.

This transformation was driven by market competition and customer demands, costing significant time and human resources.

Entering the unknown battlefield of power batteries

In April 2011, Xinwangda listed on the Growth Enterprise Market, becoming one of China’s few lithium battery companies publicly traded. By then, it had an international team, top engineering manufacturing, and high-end quality control—core competitive advantages.

The first spring after listing, Xinwangda’s leadership held a strategic review in Jinggangshan, a symbolic location, marking their “second startup”: shifting from consumer electronics batteries to the broader and more brutal power battery sector.

In Jinggangshan, Wang Mingwang established strict rules: maintain high-quality high-end positioning, allocate a fixed proportion of revenue to R&D, and aggressively advance into upstream materials and core cell components.

This strategic shift was a response to industry trends and a pursuit of new growth but also meant facing new competitors and technical challenges, with higher R&D costs, longer payback periods, and fiercer market competition.

At that time, CATL and BYD had already taken the lead in the power battery race, with significant first-mover advantages. As a latecomer, Xinwangda faced enormous pressure.

More critically, whether its manufacturing capabilities and systemic understanding from consumer electronics could be successfully transferred to power batteries remained uncertain.

Though both share some technological roots, power batteries differ greatly in requirements, applications, and standards. Xinwangda needed to re-invest in R&D, build production lines, and accumulate experience—a “dimensionality reduction” challenge.

This was an asymmetric battle launched in the gap between giants, a crucial test for Xinwangda’s second startup. As a “latecomer” in the power battery sector, the process was bound to be tough and uncertain.

In 2016, the national new energy vehicle whitelist policy was gradually implemented, making domestic power battery localization mandatory. Japanese and Korean cells were barred, forcing Xinwangda, which relied on external high-end cells for system integration, to accelerate its own R&D and production of power cells.

By then, CATL and BYD had already established large lead advantages. Competing head-to-head on capacity and price in the mainstream BEV market was futile.

Xinwangda had to find a steep, less monopolized breakthrough point that could significantly enhance its core technology.

A strategic test that would determine its future decade had begun.

Avoiding the sharp edge, focusing on HEV

From 2014 to 2017, the industry was fiercely competitive: pure electric, plug-in hybrid, extended-range… each path had supporters.

After several internal meetings, Xinwangda’s leadership reached a penetrating conclusion: regardless of the final outcome, the core pain points of power batteries were always high energy density, long cycle life, safety, stability, and wide temperature range.

Who can solve these at the highest level will hold the technical discourse. They set their sights on a seemingly niche, but technically hellish, segment: HEV batteries.

HEV batteries, though small in capacity, demand extremely high charge/discharge rates. During startup and acceleration, they must release huge energy; during braking, they must quickly recover energy.

This shallow charge/discharge mode, with tens of thousands of cycles, imposes severe requirements on materials, low-temperature performance, consistency, and thermal management.

At that time, the global HEV battery supply chain was almost controlled by Japanese giants like Toyota and Panasonic. Few Chinese companies dared to tackle this hard nut.

Xinwangda believed HEV was the foundation for revolutionary change in the industry. Mastering high-power, high-rate HEV tech would enable future pure electric or fast-charging applications—an extension of the same core technology.

This decision built a deep technological moat and avoided direct confrontation with giants.

“Decisive battle” with Renault-Nissan

Choosing HEV was one thing; winning orders from top automakers was another. In 2017, the real test arrived.

At that time, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance (one of the world’s largest auto alliances) was scouting HEV battery suppliers in China.

Because Xinwangda had supplied BMS for Renault joint ventures, their stable quality impressed the French side, and Nissan Alliance decided to include Xinwangda in their evaluation list.

Renault-Nissan’s audit standards were the strictest in the automotive industry: ASES (Quality Management System) and PSES (Process Management System). Facing these standards, often more demanding than many top domestic automakers, Xinwangda decided to go all-in.

Three months before the joint audit team arrived, Wang Mingwang led a team to Guizhou for intensive training. They invited senior Japanese system consultants to dissect every clause of ASES and PSES, refining control points like PQP (Product Quality Planning), and requiring all managers to pass closed-book exams.

Beyond system preparation, Xinwangda paid attention to tiny details. The Japanese experts didn’t speak English or Chinese. Usually, a translator would be used, but for such technical audits, a literal translation was insufficient. If the translator misunderstood engineering logic, it could be disastrous.

Wang Huawen recalls that their translator was not only fluent in Japanese but also deeply involved in all system training, fully understanding internal processes and engineering data, and proficient in industrial manufacturing. During the three-day audit, this translator accurately conveyed Xinwangda’s process capabilities, product consistency, and control points in professional engineering Japanese.

This detail demonstrated Xinwangda’s comprehensive execution and boosted client confidence. Renault-Nissan ultimately favored Xinwangda.

Getting the entry ticket was just the beginning. Over the next three years, joint development pushed Xinwangda into a technical crucible.

Japanese automakers shared decades of practical experience but also imposed extremely strict validation standards.

For example, “condensation” issues: in environments with temperature swings, water droplets can form on batteries, risking short circuits if they enter circuits. To solve this, Xinwangda formed a special team, working with upstream material suppliers to test adhesion and tensile strength of packaging films and composite materials.

“Many domestic suppliers found it too difficult; they had no such strict requirements for pure electric batteries,” Wang Huawen says. But after years of relentless effort, Xinwangda built a HEV lithium battery plant in Nanjing and, on its own, restructured China’s high-end HEV supply chain.

From 2021 to 2025, Xinwangda’s HEV batteries ranked first nationwide for five consecutive years.

Supercharging, where does the confidence come from?

Having mastered high-power HEV tech, Xinwangda experienced a technological spillover. This coincided with the biggest pain point of pure electric vehicles (BEV): range anxiety and slow charging.

In fact, in early years, Xinwangda had achieved discharge rates of 15C to 20C in drone batteries. When this high-rate tech merged with HEV’s wide temperature and long cycle life, “supercharging” became natural.

The real breakthrough happened in 2022.

If Renault-Nissan taught Xinwangda about “systems,” then new carmakers like Li Auto reshaped its business soul.

In traditional auto supply chains, automakers are the absolute clients, and suppliers are the service providers. The latter follow a black-box model: automakers specify parameters, suppliers produce, and deliver. Who the vehicle is for or what problems it solves is not their concern.

Li Auto broke this arrogance and barrier.

In 2022, after five years of preliminary cooperation, Li Auto and Xinwangda finalized a partnership. Li Auto opened its core product roadmap to Xinwangda.

“They not only tell us the parameters they want but also break down in detail why the vehicle is designed that way—target demographics, temperature, humidity, safety under extreme conditions, and emotional needs.”

This full transparency made Xinwangda’s team feel the engineering data cold but also warm. To match this collaboration, Xinwangda reorganized its structure.

They assembled a dedicated project team of over 100 people, which in 2023 was upgraded to a dedicated business unit (BU). R&D and engineering staff worked jointly with Li Auto at the base. They co-defined the battery development path: from 2C, 4C, 6C to the ultimate 15C supercharging.

While the industry was still tackling 4C fast-charging heat issues, Xinwangda began extensive extreme testing, raising safety thresholds industry-wide. They proactively set standards several levels above national requirements in impact resistance and thermal runaway management.

In joint development with Li Auto, Xinwangda demonstrated its foundational technology from the hybrid era. “We don’t just verify data; during the transition from prototypes to mass production, our engineers and Li Auto’s team go through each process and device—welding strength, adhesive uniformity, wiring routes—every step is uploaded and compared with massive data for consistency.”

Xinwangda’s supercharging tech was among the earliest mass-produced in the industry. In 2022, it was first applied in the Xiaopeng G9; by 2025, jointly with Huawei, they built heavy-duty truck supercharging systems and ecosystems, becoming the first power battery company to mass-produce in the heavy truck segment.

Battery passport and platform empowerment

According to data from the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, Xinwangda’s HEV batteries ranked first domestically for the fifth consecutive year in 2025, second globally. Its overall power battery market share in China was 3.17%, ranking sixth worldwide, among top second-tier companies; its consumer electronics sector remained high—mobile phone battery market share 34.3% (world’s first), laptop batteries 21.6% (second worldwide). Energy storage shipments reached 8.91 GWh in the first half of 2026, up 133.25% year-on-year.

By 2026, China’s new energy vehicle industry chain had hit a ceiling of internal competition, and the era of going global had fully arrived.

This time, going abroad was no longer about selling cheap products to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In high-potential markets like Europe and North America, barriers were no longer just tariffs but also invisible carbon emissions, ESG compliance, and local ecological reviews.

Power batteries, as the heart of vehicles, faced the most scrutiny.

In uncertain times, Xinwangda needs to secure and expand its position on the global stage.

Years ago, while most domestic battery makers were desperately expanding capacity, Xinwangda’s international team sensed a major shift in Europe.

This was driven by their early deep cooperation with high-end European automakers. Their ESG requirements were extremely strict—not only performance standards but also full lifecycle carbon footprint tracing from cradle to grave.

Under Europe’s stringent standards, the CO₂ emissions per kWh of electricity must be below 100 grams (CO₂/kWh). Only energy infrastructure meeting this standard is considered “environmentally sustainable” (actual values vary by model).

This means that if a battery factory still relies on coal-fired power, no matter how high the yield or low the cost, its carbon emissions will be over the limit, unable to meet Europe’s threshold.

To cross this critical line, Xinwangda invested heavily to develop a comprehensive carbon footprint algorithm and model, and fully integrated clean energy into its production bases.

But that wasn’t enough. A large part of battery carbon emissions comes from upstream materials like cathodes, anodes, and electrolytes. Xinwangda didn’t treat this ESG standard as a secret weapon but deeply empowered upstream suppliers. All export orders had to connect to Xinwangda’s ESG management system and data platform.

Many domestic upstream companies lacked the capability and funds to develop complex carbon emission models. Xinwangda’s approach was: “I’ll build the framework and standards; you follow and comply.”

This “grouping and going abroad” model greatly reduced industry trial-and-error costs and promoted local supply chain development in Hungary, Morocco, Thailand, and other bases.

Behind global expansion, continuous technological innovation was essential. But with next-generation tech like solid-state and sodium-ion batteries blooming, a wrong choice could wipe out billions in investment instantly.

How to avoid technological route risks?

“Isolated lab R&D is meaningless; there must be a real application scenario connecting technology and industry.” To support agile development, Xinwangda built a vast R&D matrix: over 10,000 power R&D personnel, investing about 6% of annual revenue into R&D.

They established a Central Research Institute, creating foundational platforms. Pure electric, hybrid, solid-state, and fast-charging platforms all started here, achieving breakthroughs from zero to one and standardization.

Once the platform was ready, business units could extract modules to meet customer needs—like building blocks—designing customized solutions for specific pain points.

The rhythm of mass production, reserve, and pre-research enabled Xinwangda to handle extreme demands. They also deeply collaborated with benchmark clients, refining through extreme scenarios and feeding back improvements to the platform.

Battery + ecosystem evolution

In recent years of rapid EV growth, the industry often talks about “one super, many strong.” But this isn’t the end of the power battery industry. As technological dividends thin, a more complex and fascinating multi-polar era is emerging.

Scenario and customer segmentation are intense: some need ultra-fast charging, others require cold resistance, some prioritize absolute safety like aerospace-grade power.

In an interview at Wang Huawen’s office, a model of EHang’s eVTOL was brought in for a report.

This is part of Wang Mingwang’s “Battery +” strategy: centered on batteries, extending into eVTOL, energy storage, vehicles, and embodied robots, with eVTOL as a key application.

“In the air, batteries must be absolutely safe,” Wang Huawen explained, pointing to the model. Xinwangda’s aerospace-grade battery packs must prevent thermal runaway from spreading. Even if one or two cells go into extreme thermal failure, it cannot affect neighboring cells, ensuring safe, stable landing of manned aircraft.

From improving phone battery endurance, tackling high-power hybrid vehicle demands, to ensuring absolute redundancy for flying cars, Xinwangda’s identity is evolving. They are no longer just a high-end manufacturer but building a full ecological energy solution platform, including backend data monitoring, full lifecycle traceability, and second-life recycling.

To operate efficiently in such a complex ecosystem, traditional management is no longer enough.

Since 2024, intelligent transformation has swept Xinwangda internally. By 2026, the management issued a “kill order”: all staff and processes must learn AI.

Why embrace AI so aggressively? Because platform-based R&D amplifies data value infinitely. China’s new energy industry leads globally thanks to an enormous industrial data pool—priceless assets.

Xinwangda is integrating AI models into development efficiency, pace, and quality—moving from automation and digitization to full AI—always hungry for foundational tools.

Self-reflection, reverence, and long-term logic

If we chart Xinwangda’s revenue growth, it’s a steep upward line.

In 2009, Wang Huawen joined, with annual sales of just 600-700 million yuan; by 2011, when listed on the GEM, revenue was about 1 billion. Today, Xinwangda’s revenue approaches 60 billion yuan.

In China’s fiercely competitive lithium sector, many once-famous companies have collapsed or fallen into overcapacity. Xinwangda’s survival logic is unique.

“We have a deep-rooted tradition: when problems arise, we first criticize ourselves, not blame others or the environment. We ask: what did I do wrong? Where can I improve my system?”

This customer-centric, self-critical culture allows Xinwangda to see crises as opportunities for self-upgrade rather than resistance.

Additionally, Xinwangda has a rigorous decision-making mechanism rooted in industry respect and scientific rigor.

In the capital-intensive power battery sector, the greatest fear isn’t loss but missing the right technological route. To avoid systemic risks, Xinwangda established a strict PCP (Product Development Process) review committee.

Any frontier project—semi-solid, solid-state, sodium-ion—must undergo dual questioning at the group level before large-scale investment, assessing technical feasibility and commercial viability, progressing from small batches to pilot lines, then to demonstration and mass production.

With scientific decision-making, they also pursue deep strategic layout: full industry chain, full lifecycle quality management, and regional co-creation.

Xinwangda is no longer just an assembly or cell factory. They extend upstream into cathode, anode, electrolyte, even mineral resources; downstream, they develop power systems (cells, BMS, packs) and a comprehensive closed-loop network for recycling and second use.

From raw material extraction’s first carbon footprint, to real-time data monitoring after assembly, to disassembly and recycling after decommissioning, Xinwangda achieves PPB-level (billionth) quality control.

Following clients abroad, after establishing bases in Thailand, they quickly expanded into Hungary, Morocco, and other hubs, building a flexible global supply network across regions.

But behind the “three all” strategy is continuous large-scale resource investment: R&D spending remains around 6.5-7% of total revenue annually. With nearly 60 billion yuan in assets, this means 3-4 billion yuan each year poured into labs and testing—short-term unrewarded.

“Auto Business Review” believes that evaluating a company should consider macro environment, industry pattern, and long-term development history comprehensively.

Now, reflecting on this company that emerged from Shiyan Street, with a rugged but resilient path, what core value has it brought to China’s and the world’s new energy industry?

First, respect for industry and adherence to rules.

In a volatile, bubble-filled sector, Xinwangda’s relentless focus on HEV proves: don’t chase shortcuts. Industry has its rhythm; return to product fundamentals—energy density, safety, lifespan, stability—and solve the most boring pain points. Avoid blind fads, stay strategic.

Second, embedding high quality into China’s power DNA.

From Philips, Apple to Renault-Nissan, Xinwangda learned top-tier international quality control, and through strict supplier management, extended this system upstream, building a high-standard high-end supply chain.

Third, the power of ecosystem collaboration.

Abandoning zero-sum game mentality, deep cooperation with Li Auto, pre-defined needs, and integrated industry chain, forming a community of interests, has improved hardware iteration efficiency in China’s new energy vehicles.

From grassroots OEM to global chain leader, Xinwangda’s growth reflects how Chinese private manufacturing can upgrade through perseverance.

Its balancing of short-term gains and long-term vision, relentless pursuit of technology, and strategic adjustments amid industry upheavals demonstrate the resilience and vitality of Chinese private enterprises, as well as the arduous but inevitable path of high-end manufacturing transformation.

We hope this detailed account of Xinwangda’s growth logic offers a rational reference for readers interested in China’s new energy industry and manufacturing upgrade.

Enterprise development is never smooth. Xinwangda’s experience and lessons, its perseverance and respect for industry rules, hold valuable lessons for all Chinese private firms in transition.

Author’s note: Personal opinions only, for reference.