Korea's battery makers all swing back to profit — ESS in North America erases the EV 'chasm'

Korea's three big battery makers all returned to profit in Q2. Samsung SDI posted operating profit of ₩203.8B on revenue up 18.5% to ₩3.77T — its first profit after seven consecutive loss quarters — with net profit of ₩472B, helped by a lineup of utility ESS, UPS and backup products aimed at AI-data-center demand and a US tax credit. LG Energy Solution swung to ₩113B operating profit (~$75M) on ₩7.56T revenue, reversing a Q1 loss, as its ESS division revenue rose nearly fivefold year on year. Both cited North American ESS shipments plus recovering European EV demand.

Why it matters

The whole Korean battery complex just confirmed, in the same quarter, the thesis this newsroom has tracked one company at a time: storage is now the profit driver, not EVs. Samsung SDI ending a seven-quarter losing streak on utility/data-center products validates its grid-and-backup pivot; LG's fivefold ESS jump is the Google Steel River order and sodium mother line showing up in the P&L, the same force behind CATL's storage-led beat. AI data centers wanting firm, backup and grid power turned "erase the EV chasm" from a slogan into three profit statements. The risk is symmetry: everyone pivoting to ESS at once is exactly what compresses the margins that just recovered.

What to watch

Whether ESS margins hold as capacity floods in, the durability of the European EV recovery, and how much of the North American ESS surge is directly AI-data-center demand versus grid buildout.