The battery manufacturer Varta has important patent dispute: Samsung has already thrown in the and a long-term contract with Varta course delivery, with Jabra standing, apparently, in promising talks. For the investor this is an opportunity: up to the Monday lunch, the price of the Varta-shares rose more than 9 percent to 103 euros. Samsung belongs to the past, to the four major customers of Varta, which together account for around 90 percent of sales.
Susanne Preuß
business correspondent in Stuttgart, Germany.
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“We are pleased that we are able to intensify the business relationships with Samsung, once again,” commented Varta CEO Herbert Schein agreement. The now negotiated prior to the delivery relationship, the battery specialist, with headquarters in Ellwangen (Baden-Württemberg) “will be in the coming years, the main supplier of rechargeable batteries Headsets Samsung”. “This strengthens our leading Position as a manufacturer of innovative and high-performance batteries for Premium Wearables”, can slip in a message of the company quote.
This strong position of Varta seemed to be in acute danger, as in January, seems to have been that, in some of the Headset’s battery plug, the appearance as well as the little ones from Baden-Württemberg, but of a different quality. It comes to production details, such as the cell structure, but also to the way how the cell is closed.
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The difference in quality shows in the fact that Varta creates, in spite of a very thin stainless steel case is a very tight closure of the battery. As a consumer, you would recognize the difference hardly, the experts of Varta, to make regular analyses of the Competition and of the cells to x-ray or computer tomography to examine, of course, was alarmed: there was a sudden battery of Chinese manufacturer Mic Power and Eve, which were produced according to the Varta principle, and not only in Samsung products, but also from Jabra.
“That was the Short-Seller attack in January,” recalls investor relations responsible Varta Manager Bernhard Wolf to the price fall in January: the monopoly position of Varta, the battery can also be the supplier for the Airpods from Apple, appeared abruptly in the past. Accordingly drastically Varta responded, brought a patent lawsuit against the manufacturers as well as dealers, both in Germany and in the United States: “We wanted to have the products as quickly as possible from the market,” says Wolf. In the classic response to such patent disputes Varta conceded against lawsuits.
