PROFILE: DONG LI, LEOCH BATTERY
F
rom a start-up turnover in the tens of thousands of dollars to revenues of some $1.5 billion last year is quite an achievement for anyone. And to do it in just 20 years makes this story of China’s, Leoch Battery, and its founder Dong Li, seem more like a story from Silicon Valley than a lead battery firm that has become one of the largest in the country. The ‘Leoch’ name is a combination of the word ‘Leo’ for lion and ‘Ch’ for champion, the name having an international flavour, says Dong Li. Kicking it off with an investment of just Rmb2 million in 1999 (then around $240,000), the company has more or less doubled its revenue every subsequent year for the first five years. It was $1 million in year one, $2 million in year two, $4 million in year three, $7 million in year four and in year five reached $15 million. Last year, in its 20th year, the company brought in $1.5 billion, Dong Li says. It’s now the fourth or fifth largest lead battery maker in China, and tops, or comes near the top. in many areas of global lead battery supply. Dong Li says it was the top global supplier of network power batteries and telecoms batteries in the first half of 2019; in automotive and UPS exports it came second; and in all other major areas of supply, such as SLI and motorcycle, E bike, EV, railway and aftermarket batteries, Leoch was one of the top three or four Chinese companies. It has plants in the UK, US, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Singapore, India, Australia, Sri Lanka, Turkey and South Africa, and employs 11,000 people. But in the beginning, it wasn’t even batteries that Dong Li was interested in.
Championing the case for lead — but now lithium too Dong Li, chairman and founder of Chinese battery giant Leoch, spoke to Debbie Mason in London this October about the rise and rise of his firm — and the way ahead for the industry.
Roots
As so many stories out of China begin, this one also has its roots in the pastoral past. Most people lived in the poor countryside and had to endure the turmoil of Mao Zedong and his Great Leap Forward, followed by the decade-long Cultural Revolution, which only ended in 1976 when chairman Mao died. “Everybody was ordinary,” says Dong Li. “My mother was a teacher and my father worked for a trade union. No one had any money, no one worked for a private company — in those days you would ask what unit someone worked in, not which company.
42 • Batteries International • Winter 2019/20
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