Although at the end of 2021, the bubble of "Ning Wang" has a tendency to burst, no one will expect that after the lunar year in 2022, the stock price of the Ningde era will be more moving than Gu Ailing's big jump.
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In the five trading days since February 7, 2022, the stock of CATL has fallen in four trading days, and as of the close of trading on February 11, its stock price was only 489.99 yuan per share, a cumulative decline of 17.32%, and the market value evaporated by more than 200 billion yuan. Although the stock decline in the Ningde era is related to the relocation of some large profit-making funds to the consumption and other sectors, the flies are not seamless, and from the perspective of the power battery industry, the Ningde era has indeed fallen into an embattled situation. The reason why the "Ning Wang" outside the share of the Ningde era can obtain a high market value in the capital market is largely due to its "big brother" status in the power battery industry.
Image source: SNE Research
According to the survey data released by SNE Research, in 2021, in the global power battery share ranking, CATL accounted for 32.6% of the share, an increase of 8% year-on-year, ranking first for five consecutive years, 12.3% higher than the second ranked LG energy.
According to Orient Securities data, the initial purchase cost of electric vehicles, power batteries reached 40%. This also means that if car companies cannot earn high profits through brand premiums, software bonuses, etc., then most of the car revenue must be given to the Ningde era.
According to the financial report, in the first three quarters of 2021, CATL achieved revenue of 73.362 billion yuan, an increase of 132.73% year-on-year; net profit of 7.75 billion yuan, an increase of 130.9% year-on-year. From this point of view, with the rise of the share of power batteries, the Ningde era has indeed gained good performance.
If the new energy vehicle market has been highly mature, then the Ningde era, which has become an oligarch, can naturally lie down and count money, but the data of the Association of Automobile Associations 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, the Ningde era can not meet the gap in the market indefinitely.
Image source: Sina Finance
In 2021, in addition to the chip famine, the biggest feeling of new energy manufacturers is the battery shortage. Yang Hongxin, chairman and CEO of Hive Energy, said in an interview: "At present, the battery gap in the new energy automobile industry is 30%-50%, and it is expected that until 2025, battery production capacity is tight."
Data released by SNE Research also shows that by 2023, the global demand for power batteries for electric vehicles will reach 406GWh, while the supply of power batteries is expected to be 335GWh, a gap of about 18%.
Source: Autohome
In April 2021, Shen Nanpeng of Sequoia Capital asked Zeng Yuqun how to distribute batteries to car companies. Zeng Yuqun's reply was to distribute according to "money".
In short, if a car company wants to purchase the power battery of the Ningde era, then the former needs to make a commitment to the latter for battery demand in the next 5 years or even 10 years, and needs to pay a deposit of 100 million yuan.
In this regard, Zeng Yuqun explained: "The promise of no money is not serious. ”
Internal and external troubles
On the one hand, the production capacity of the market has not been fully satisfied, on the other hand, the Ningde era is extremely "powerful" in terms of shipments, so the result is naturally the desperate catch-up 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 put on a "tight curse", which will directly affect the delivery of cars. In March 2021, Li Bin, chairman of Weilai Automobile, said that compared with chips, the biggest bottleneck limiting capacity in the second quarter will be the battery. According to the financial report, from March to May 2021, NIO's new car deliveries were only 7257 units, 7102 units and 6711 units, respectively.
At the 2021 Q3 earnings report, Li Bin still grasped the matter and said that although a lot of investment was spent to increase the production capacity of the Ningde era, the battery supply still limited the delivery of Weilai Automobile.
Since the production capacity of the Ningde era cannot meet its own needs, what car companies can do is naturally to take the initiative to go out foraging.
At the end of 2021, 36Kr sent a message that Xiaopeng has decided to reduce the supply share of the Ningde era and introduce a new main battery supplier, AVIC Lithium Battery. Dennis, vice president of finance of Xiaopeng Motors, has said that after the introduction of lower-cost batteries, it is expected to increase the gross profit of Xiaopeng Motors by 1%-2%.
Image source: Interface News
Coincidentally, in 2020, Tesla founder Musk also said that the "pilot factory" in Fremont has begun mass production of 4680 batteries. It is expected that by the end of 2021, the plant's annual battery production will reach 10GWh.
Although car companies have demand, battery suppliers who have been lurking in the shadow of the Ningde era will naturally seize the opportunity to 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 at an issue price of 300,000 won per share, and the stock price rushed to 598,000 won on the first day of listing, an increase of nearly 100%.
Image source: Baidu Encyclopedia
Considering that there will be more sufficient funds to expand production after listing, LG New Energy will become a competitor to be reckoned with in the Ningde era in the future. Quan Yingshou, CEO of LG New Energy, once said: "In the global competition of the electric vehicle battery market, LG New Energy will soon beat Chinese competitor Ningde Era. ”
Synchronized with international companies, China's battery companies have also begun to encircle the Ningde era.
Previously, under the wind outlet of the policy, the Ningde era relied on the "heavy warehouse" ternary lithium and walked alone in the world. But what the Ningde era did not expect was that after 2021, with the policy decline, the cost of battery raw materials rose, and lithium iron phosphate quickly ushered in its second spring.
Data released by the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance shows that in 2021, China's power battery market. The installed capacity of ternary batteries was 74.3GWh, accounting for 48.1% of the total installed vehicles, an increase of 91.3% year-on-year; the loading capacity of lithium iron phosphate batteries was 79.8GWh, and the total installed volume was 51.7%, an increase of 227.4% year-on-year.
Lithium iron phosphate batteries are BYD's most important asset. Official information shows that BYD's self-developed lithium iron phosphate blade battery increases the utilization rate of traditional batteries by more than 50% and the mileage by more than 50%, while compared with ternary lithium batteries, it also has better safety, and can even pass the puncture test safely.
In the face of market demand, BYD has also "marketized" its own battery technology step by step. The information revealed by 36Kr shows that Tesla, Weilai and other car companies are actively negotiating with BYD, and it is very likely that they will reach cooperation in batteries in the future. Similar to LG New Energy, in an interview with Bloomberg, BYD founder Wang Chuanfu also revealed that it plans to spin off BYD's battery business in 2022.
Because the upstream raw materials of the battery itself have a certain ceiling, in the face of the wolf rush of downstream car companies and second-tier battery manufacturers, what the Ningde era can do, in addition to expanding production capacity, is to tell a more ambitious story to the capital market to stabilize the market value.
On January 18, 2022, Times Electric Service, a subsidiary of CATL, launched the power exchange service brand EVOGO "Lexing Battery Swap" and a series of supporting solutions.
It is understood that the "chocolate exchange block" of the Ningde era can be adapted to the A00-class, B-class to C-class passenger cars and other automotive products developed by 80% of the world's pure electric platforms that have been listed or will be listed soon.
In fact, from the perspective of policies and trends, the "new story" of the Ningde era 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 on the Application of the New Energy Vehicle Power Exchange Model", which stated that it would start the pilot of the new energy vehicle power exchange business in 11 cities including Beijing, Nanjing and Wuhan.
Image source: leadleo
The research data of the Head Leopard Research Institute also shows that in 2020, the scale of China's new energy industry power exchange market is only 38.2 billion yuan, and it is expected that after ten years, this figure will reach 1,035.6 billion, an increase of 2610.99% in ten years.
According to the 2021 semi-annual report, the power battery business of the To B end accounted for 80% of the revenue of the Ningde era. On the one hand, the power exchange mode caters to the trend, on the other hand, it can also broaden the C-end business, which is indeed very imaginative for the Ningde era.
However, it should be noted that although the power exchange model is ideal and full, unlike the supply chain waiting for car companies, operators need to take the initiative to bear extremely high operating costs.
Taking WEILAI as an example, because the substation is a solid "real estate project", with the increasing number of related stores, Weilai's loss is also increasing. According to the 2021 Q2 financial report, the construction cost of a single substation of WEILAI is about 2 million yuan. According to THE GOAL OF BUILDING 500 BY THE END OF 2021, WEILAI WILL INVEST MORE THAN 1 BILLION YUAN IN CHANGING POWER STATIONS ALONE.
For the Ningde era, which attaches too much importance to "money", whether it can continue to promote this kind of business that needs to spend money has become an unknown.