Well they were monopoly suppliers to Tesla since Tesla started selling cars. But by 2020s, it became one the smaller battery sellers alongside CATL, LG, BYD etc.
It has been selling DC batteries for a while and that is why the stock has rallied 2x in last 6 months. Because all the available $$$ are going into DC build out.
This is high growth + high margin business for Panasonic. Which otherwise operates a conglomerate with dozens of low margin and low returns cyclical businesses forever.
It has been a “restructuring play” for nearly 2 decades. Every year some new story.
This time though the pressure of TSE reforms has been huge. And we are seeing companies being forced to go on to track. Panasonic is beneficiary of that. As well as - right time right place - with its BBU (battery back up) business that needs more with newer versions of NVDA GPUs.
Hyperscalers need Panasonic BBUs. This is <5% of revenues for 3/26 and is expected to 3x in 3 years. By 3/29, Panasonic hopes that this will be 3x, which means this will be 12-13% of overall group revenues. And about 30-35% of group OP.