Although the bubble of "Ningwang" tended to burst at the end of 2021, no one would have expected that after the Lunar New Year in 2022, the downward trend of CATL's stock price in 2022 is more touching than Gu Ailing's jump.
picture source: baidu
In the five trading days since February 7, 2022, CATL's stock has fallen for four trading days. As of the closing on February 11, its stock price was only 489.99 yuan per share, a cumulative decline of 17.32%, and its market value evaporated by more than 200 billion yuan.
Although CATL's stock decline is related to the transfer of some large profit-taking funds to consumer sectors, the flies are not seamless. From the perspective of the power battery industry, CATL is indeed in a situation of being surrounded by enemies. "Ningwang" The reason why CATL was able to obtain high market value in the capital market was largely due to its position as the "big brother" in the power battery industry.
Image source: SNE Research
SNE Research Research data released shows that in 2021, CATL accounted for 32.6% of the global power battery share ranking, an increase of 8% year-on-year, ranking first for five consecutive years, 12.3% higher than the second-ranked LG Energy.
Oriental Securities data shows that among the initial purchase cost of electric vehicles, the power battery reaches 40%. This also means that if car companies cannot make high profits through brand premiums, software bonuses, etc., then the majority of car revenue will be given to CATL.
financial report shows that in the first three quarters of 2021, CATL achieved revenue of 73.362 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 132.73%; net profit of 7.75 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 130.9%. From this point of view, with the rise in the share of power batteries, CATL has indeed achieved remarkable results.
If the new energy vehicle market is already highly mature, then CATL, which has become an oligopolis, can naturally count money. However, data from the China Passenger Car Association shows that the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China in 2021 is only 14.8%, and the market still has great room for growth.
But unfortunately, CATL cannot infinitely meet the market gap.
Image source: Sina Finance
021, in addition to the chip shortage, the biggest feeling of new energy manufacturers is the battery shortage. Yang Hongxin, chairman and CEO of Honeycomb Energy, once said in an interview: "The current battery gap in the new energy vehicle industry reaches 30%-50%. It is expected that battery production capacity will be tight until 2025." Data released by
SNE Research also shows that by 2023, the global demand for power batteries for electric vehicles will reach 406GWh, while the power battery supply is expected to be 335GWh, with a gap of about 18%.
Image source: Autohome
In April 2021, Sequoia Capital Shen Nanpeng asked Zeng Yuqun how to allocate batteries to car companies? Zeng Yuqun's reply was distributed according to "money".
In short, if a car company wants to purchase CATL's power batteries, the former needs to make a battery demand commitment to the latter for the next 5 or even 10 years, and needs to pay a deposit of RMB 10 million.
In response, Zeng Yuqun explained: "The promise of not having money is not serious."
Internal and external troubles
On the one hand, the market's production capacity has not been fully met. On the other hand, CATL is extremely "power" in terms of shipment, so the result is naturally the desperate pursuit of second-tier manufacturers and the large-scale "escape" of car companies.
First of all, for car companies, the limited battery supply is equivalent to being covered with a "tight hoop", which will directly affect the delivery volume of cars. In March 2021, Li Bin, chairman of NIO, said that compared with chips, the biggest bottleneck in the second quarter will be batteries. According to the financial report, from March to May 2021, NIO's new car delivery volume was only 7,257 units, 7,102 units and 6,711 units respectively.
Image source: Sina Finance
At the 2021 Q3 financial report meeting, Li Bin still grasped the matter and said that despite spending a lot of investment to increase CATL's production capacity, battery supply still limits the delivery of NIO.
Since CATL's production capacity cannot meet its own needs, what car companies can do is naturally take the initiative to go out for food.
At the end of 2021, 36Kr sent a message saying that Xiaopeng had decided to reduce CATL's supply share and introduce a new main battery supplier, AVIC Lithium Battery. Dennis, vice president of finance at Xiaopeng Motors, once said that after introducing lower-cost batteries, it is expected to increase Xiaopeng Motors' gross profit by 1%-2%.
Image source: Interface News
. Coincidentally, in 2020, Tesla founder Musk also stated that the "test factory" in Fremont has begun mass production of 4680 batteries. It is expected that the factory's annual battery production will reach 10GWh by the end of 2021.
Although car companies have demand, battery suppliers who have been lurking in the shadow of CATL will naturally seize the opportunity and try to expand their influence. The most typical representative of this is LG New Energy.
On January 27, 2022, LG New Energy was officially listed in South Korea with an issue price of 300,000 won per share. The stock price surged to 598,000 won on the first day of listing, an increase of nearly 100%.
Image source: Baidu Encyclopedia
Considering that after it goes public, there will be more sufficient funds to expand production, LG New Energy will become a competitor that CATL cannot be underestimated in the future. LG New Energy CEO Quan Yingshou once said: "In the global competition in the electric vehicle battery market, LG New Energy will soon defeat Chinese competitor CATL."
is in line with international companies, and Chinese battery companies have also begun to encircle CATL.
Previously, under the gazebo of policies, CATL relied on its "heavy holdings" of ternary lithium to be the only one in the world. However, what CATL did not expect was that after 2021, with the decline in policies and the increase in the cost of battery raw materials, lithium iron phosphate quickly ushered in its second spring.
Data released by the China Automobile Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance shows that in 2021, China's power battery market will be in the Chinese power battery market. The loading volume of ternary batteries was 74.3GWh, accounting for 48.1% of the total loading volume, an increase of 91.3% year-on-year; the loading volume of lithium iron phosphate batteries was 79.8GWh, and the total loading volume was 51.7% of the total loading volume, an increase of 227.4% year-on-year.
Image source: Autohome
And lithium iron phosphate battery is BYD's most important asset. Official data shows that BYD's self-developed lithium iron phosphate blade battery increases the utilization rate of traditional batteries by more than 50% and the cruising range by more than 50%, while also having better safety than ternary lithium batteries, it can even pass the puncture test safely.
In the face of market demand, BYD has also gradually "marketized" its own battery technology. Information disclosed by 36Kr shows that automakers such as Tesla and NIO are actively negotiating with BYD, and it is very likely to reach cooperation in battery areas in the future. Similar to LG New Energy, in an interview with BYD, BYD founder Wang Chuanfu also revealed that he plans to divest BYD's battery business in 2022.
Because the upstream raw materials of batteries have a certain ceiling, facing the rush of downstream car companies and second-tier battery manufacturers, what CATL can do is not only expand production capacity, but also tell the capital market a more Hundredth story to stabilize the market value.
On January 18, 2022, CATL's subsidiary Times Electric Service launched the battery swap service brand EVOGO "Lexing Battery Swap" and a series of supporting solutions.
Image source: Sina Finance
It is understood that CATL's "chocolate battery swap block" can be adapted to passenger cars from A00, B to C, and 80% of the world's pure electric platforms developed by pure electric platforms.
In fact, from the perspective of policies and trends, CATL’s “new story” does have a certain appeal.
For example, in October 2021, the General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Launching the Pilot Work of the Application of New Energy Vehicle Battery Swap Model", stating that the pilot project of new energy vehicle battery swap business will be launched in 11 cities including Beijing, Nanjing, Wuhan, etc.
Image source: leadleo
Taobao Research Institute research data also shows that in 2020, the battery swap market size of China's new energy industry was only 38.2 billion yuan, and it is estimated that in ten years, this number will reach 1035.6 billion, an increase of 2610.99% in ten years.
021 semi-annual report shows that among CATL’s revenue, To B-side power battery business accounts for 80%. On the one hand, the battery swap model caters to the trend, and on the other hand, it can also expand the C-end business. For CATL, it is indeed very imaginative.
But it should be noted that although the battery swap mode is ideal, it is different from the supply chain waiting for car companies and businesses, operators need to take the initiative and bear extremely high operating costs.
Take NIO as an example. Since battery swap stations are real "real estate projects", as the number of related stores increases, NIO's losses are getting bigger and bigger. According to the Q2 2021 financial report, the construction cost of NIO's single battery swap station is about 2 million yuan. Judging from the goal of building 500 units by the end of 2021 that NIO had previously planned, NIO would invest more than 1 billion yuan in battery swap stations alone.
For CATL, which attaches too much importance to "money", it is an unknown whether it can continue to promote such a business that requires money.
