Power battery two giants launched to reshape the industry position

The power battery giant listed in the Ningde era is just around the corner. The lithium battery "veteran" who once ranked in the first line of the camp - Tianjin Lishen also launched a tough battle to reshape the industry.

On April 23, some domestic media sources said that Chinese battery manufacturer Tianjin Lishen Co., Ltd. plans to open a sales office in Germany. At the same time, the company is working with local automakers including Volkswagen and Daimler. The negotiations aimed to provide batteries for the electric vehicles of the above-mentioned automobile manufacturers.

According to previous media reports, the new office of Tianjin Lishen in Germany will be located in Wolfsburg, near the headquarters of Volkswagen, and sources close to Volkswagen also revealed that Volkswagen is in deep negotiations with Tianjin Lishen, but the final agreement has not yet been signed.

Under the background of European countries vigorously developing new energy power batteries, due to the lack of local battery manufacturers in Europe, this market has become a market for power battery companies such as China, Japan and South Korea. It can be seen that Tianjin Lishen, which plans to set up a sales office in Germany, is also targeting this market opportunity.

However, unlike the Ningde era, which has already taken the lead in the European market development, the industry believes that Tianjin Lishen's entry into Germany has more meanings for boosting its performance and reshaping its position in the industry.

Entering Germany to boost performance

In the past month or so, the news that domestic power battery manufacturers won the international big orders has been continuously spread, and the first to eat crabs is the Ningde era of the current A-share IPO "lightning over".

On March 13, Volkswagen Group CEO LunMu revealed at the group's annual meeting that as of now, Volkswagen Group's battery purchase orders in Europe and China have reached 20 billion euros, and the company's first Chinese battery partner is In the Ningde era; in addition, Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, also said that Daimler has signed a contract with the Ningde era. In the future, whether in China or globally, Mercedes-Benz electric vehicles will use Chinese batteries.

It is reported that in the auto industry entering the competition of R&D and manufacturing of new energy vehicles, multinational auto manufacturers including Volkswagen and Daimler are vigorously promoting the transformation of the power vehicle field. Among them, the Volkswagen Group launched the electrification strategy “Road map E” in 2017. The strategy plans to produce 3 million electric vehicles per year by 2025 and launch more than 80 new electric models. Currently, the new energy vehicle points are Zero Daimler is also working with Chinese new and old partners to jointly promote the layout of the new energy vehicle industry, and has announced the investment in building battery factories in Thailand and China.

The expansion of the above-mentioned two major auto companies in the development of power vehicles directly brings about a substantial increase in the demand for upstream power batteries. According to the global battery procurement tender previously announced by the Volkswagen Group, the amount of the order is as high as 50 billion Euros. In addition, a statement issued by the German Automobile Industry Federation recently stated that the German automotive industry plans to invest 40 billion Euros in electric vehicle research and development by 2020.

In the general market of overcapacity of domestic power battery companies, the European market of tens of billions of Euros is undoubtedly an attractive cake, but it was once ranked in the industry compared with the above-mentioned Ningde era, where the momentum of development is fierce and successfully cut into this market. Tianjin Lishen in the first camp faced a decline in industry status and performance.

It is understood that as a veteran state-owned enterprise in the domestic lithium battery industry, Tianjin Lishen ranked third in terms of shipments of approximately 1.2GWh in 2015, after ranking in the list of major domestic power battery shipments in the BYD and Ningde era. However, or by 2017, Tianjin Lishen's ranking has slipped to sixth place, while Wattmar, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, BAK Power and other late-stage companies are catching up.

What is more serious is that on the one hand, Tianjin Lishen's 2017 results show that its 2017 annual operating income has decreased by nearly 100 million Yuan compared with 2016, and its net profit has suffered a large loss: from 2016's profit of 2.83. 100 million Yuan fell to a loss of 348 million Yuan; on the other hand, the market share of the industry further gathered toward leading enterprises, of which the market share of the Ningde era rose from 30% in 2017 to more than half of the recently announced March installed capacity proportion.

When the industry situation shifted from "two-headed" to a single big one, the crisis of reshuffled the resurgence prompted many companies including Tianjin Lishen to seek change. Ke Mo, chief analyst of True Lithium Research, said that if Tianjin Lishen can seize this opportunity, it will be of great help to boost its morale and increase the confidence of the company.

Adjust and start again

In fact, the power battery customers of Tianjin Lishen show that they mainly supply domestic or Chinese-foreign joint venture brands such as Dongfeng, FAW, BAIC, SAIC, Wuzhoulong, Changan and Geely, and they still need to expand in the international car enterprise customers. If this time can be successfully negotiated with Volkswagen or Daimler, it will become a substantial step for Tianjin Lishen to directly enter the international market.

However, from the adjustment measures of Tianjin Lishen and its shareholder companies in 2017, they have begun to realize the above problems and launched a series of directions for school flights.

According to Chunlin Zhou, chairman of Tianjin Lishen Shareholders Co., Ltd., Chunlin Zhou, released in March, “The second economic growth pole of the Group’s power generation company”, the company’s organizational structure will be adjusted to create “four 1+N” basic business entity architecture, and in the two core business segments of military power supply and power battery, the division of force products is divided into military business and civilian battery business, in which military business is injected into the listing platform.

According to the market dynamics revealed by the Mercury in the past year, on March 26, 2018, in the major asset restructuring plan announced by ST Jialing, Zhongdian Power and Tianjin Lishen, as the trading parties, are operating special power supplies. The space power of the business and the equity of Lishen Telecommunications were sold as targets to *ST Jialing. This also means that while the ST Jialing completed the business transformation by this restructuring, the adjustment of the power system also completed one of the steps.

In addition, as Chunlin Zhou emphasized in the above article, the company's adjustment is to deepen the Group's strategic layout in the new energy industry, and Tianjin Lishen, which is positioned as a highly lithium-ion supplier, has also increased its business outside the consumer electronics business. The layout of the power battery business, the company's production capacity has gradually expanded.

According to the data, in May 2017, Lishen's 2 billion WH power battery base in Qingdao started construction. In July, Lishen invested a total of 2.1 billion Yuan. The 21700 power battery project with an annual output of 4Gwh was put into production first, and the first 21700 in China was launched. Customized production line; In November, with the completion of the new fully automated factory in Tianjin (sixth phase), Lishen's annual production capacity reached 10 billion watt-hours. According to previous media reports, Tianjin Lishen expects production capacity to reach 20 billion watt-hours per year in 2020 and 50 billion watt-hours per year in 2025.

However, whether the new opportunities for the development of the power battery industry can help Tianjin Lishen reshape the industry remains to be tested. It is understood that with the expansion of Tianjin Lishen in the power battery business, the company's debt ratio and other financial data also showed large fluctuations.

In addition, it is worth noting that the above-mentioned industry analysts who did not want to be named said that when Tianjin Lishen looked at the international market, although it is still a representative enterprise in China in terms of battery technology and manufacturing capabilities, it is in the European market. Tianjin Lishen also faces strong opponents from Japan and South Korea.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.