SMM January 21 News: As the Chinese New Year approaches, the festive atmosphere in the lead-acid battery market is becoming more pronounced. Entering January, major lead-acid battery producers have started arranging holiday schedules around the Chinese New Year break. On one hand, they are conducting the customary pre-holiday stockpiling of raw materials like lead ingots, considering the time gap between production and logistics suspension. On the other hand, they are notifying dealers to stock up in advance based on logistics suspension timelines and arranging shipments of new batteries. It is understood that before this year's Chinese New Year, end-use consumption in the battery markets for electric bicycles, automobiles, and other sectors has been relatively weak. Some dealers, having stocked up heavily in December 2024, were unable to make further large-scale purchases in January. Other dealers, pessimistic about the post-holiday market, limited their pre-holiday stockpiling of batteries to essential needs. As a result, by January 10, the vast majority of dealers had completed their stockpiling, with only a few continuing until around January 15.
According to SMM, after lead-acid battery dealers completed their stockpiling, producers also began to gradually suspend operations and take holidays. Some enterprises started their holidays as early as January 15, while most lead-acid battery producers began their breaks progressively on January 17-20-23, with the period around the "Little New Year" seeing the highest concentration of holiday starts. The last batch of enterprises is expected to take holidays between January 25-28. Among them, a few enterprises plan to continue shift work during the Chinese New Year or take only 2-3 days off. Regarding post-holiday resumption, the majority of enterprises plan to restart operations on the eighth day of the lunar calendar (February 5).
Looking at the holiday schedules of lead-acid battery producers over the past eight years, the total holiday duration for major enterprises in 2025 is relatively short. However, this does not indicate robust end-use consumption in the lead-acid battery market. It is worth noting that this year, some large enterprises have started their holidays earlier, a situation rarely seen in previous years, where typically only small and medium-sized enterprises would take early or extended holidays.
