Myanmar Battery Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2021 - 2026)

The Myanmar battery market is expected to register a CAGR of greater than 1.5% during the forecast period. Myanmar's battery market depends majorly on automotive application segment. With the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the market witnessed a significant decrease in sales. According to the Automotive Association of Myanmar, in 2019, new vehicle sales amounted to 21,916 vehicles, with an increase of about 25% compared to 2018 (sales of 17,524 vehicles). The number significantly decreased to 17,707 units in 2020 (a decrease of around 19%). The degrowth in the automotive market was primarily due to a slowdown in the economy, leading to lower per capita income of the people in Myanmar. Factors such as increasing demand from data centers and declining lithium-ion battery prices are expected to drive the Myanmar battery market during the forecast period. However, lack of supportive government policies and measures to promote the deployment of utility scale BESS projects coupled with high costs of battery energy storage solutions for commercial and residential customers are expected to restrain the market growth in Myanmar during the forecast period.​

Key Highlights

• The automotive segment is expected to witness significant growth during the forecast period, owing to the increasing demand for new vehicles produced in the country.
• Potential growth of lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicle (EV) market is expected to create immense opportunities for the Myanmar battery market in the coming years.
• Increasing demand from data centers is expected to drive the battery market in Myanmar, owing to the exponential growth of data from the heavy use of technologies like 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), etc.

Key Market Trends

Automotive Segment to Witness Significant Growth

• Myanmar is an agriculture-dependent country. A major proportion of the population is engaged directly in agricultural pursuits. Of those who are employed in other sectors of the economy, many are indirectly involved in agriculture through activities, such as transporting, processing, marketing, and exporting agricultural goods.
• Till 2012, the country imported automotive vehicles for its needs. The Ministry of Industry launched the new reforms for the automotive market to support transport and auto-related business through sustainable development and more foreign direct investments, leading to the increase in the vehicles used over the period. ​
• The vehicle sales in Myanmar have grown considerably since 2016. In 2018, automobiles' total sales amounted to 17,524 vehicles, with an increase of 113% compared to 2017. The rise in demand for automotive vehicles is the government reforms in 2012, after when several automakers started setting up new manufacturing and assembly facilities, which started coming online in the later period of 2015. This hike is expected to drive the demand in the battery market in the country. The sales further increased to 21,916 units in 2019 before declining to 17,707 units in 2020 due to the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.
• In November 2019, Toyota became the sixth automaker after Nissan, Suzuki, Kia, and Ford, to venture into automobiles' production in the country. The USD 52.6 million plants in the Thilawa Special Economic Zone outside Yangon will produce Hilux pickup trucks. It is slated to go online in 2021. However, the company has decided to postpone the opening following the 1st February 2021 military coup.
• Therefore, based on the above-mentioned factors, automotive application segment is expected to witness significant growth in Myanmar during the forecast period.

Increasing Demand From Data Centers to Drive the Market

• With the advent of 5G (5G network launched in August 2019) and the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), data center construction and deployment and upgrading efforts in existing data centers are booming. Furthermore, the Myanmar data center market has experienced steady growth, which is predicted to continue over the next five years; the growth has been strong from both local and international providers.​
• Myanmar has three datacenters owned by Myint & Associates Telecommunications Ltd, GTMH Telecom, and Burst Myanmar, based at Yangon. Several players are planning to invest in new data centers over the coming years. The new data centers are expected to drive the demand for batteries in the country during the forecast period.
• In 2015, True IDC established the new data center under the name True IDC Myanmar, the first data center in Myanmar, located at MICT Park, Yangon. True IDC Myanmar operates its business and provides services based on over 17-year experience of True IDC Thailand who has been certified by Uptime, ISO/IEC 20000-1, ISO/IEC 27001, ISO 22301, ISO 50001, CSA STAR Cloud Security and PCI DSS.​
• Additionally, True IDC Myanmar is well-recognized for its convenient location and accessibility, its rapid and highly-efficient customer response as well as its Service Level Agreement (SLA) guaranteed at 99.90%.
• As of July 2020, True IDC - Myanmar offers a Carrier Neutral Data Center which is open to all service providers to freely connect their businesses. They also offer Internet Exchange (IX) service allowing a large variety of businesses, namely OTT service providers, to choose services from True IDC – Myanmar, including connectivity services.
• Therefore, such services are likely to create positive impact for the data centers market in the country, which, in turn, increases the demand for batteries during the forecast period.​

Competitive Landscape

The Myanmar battery market is consolidated. Some of the major players include Siam GS Battery Myanmar Limited, Schneider Electric SE, Toyo Battery Myanmar Co. Ltd, and Panasonic Corporation.

Additional Benefits:

• The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
• 3 months of analyst support