【Introduction: On February 24, Sunwoda announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Sunwoda Automotive Battery, increased its capital by 2.43 billion yuan. As a battery company that ranks low in the field of electric vehicle power batteries in China, Sunwoda's round of capital increase has attracted the top three new domestic forces, including Wei Xiaoli, and has become the focus of attention of the whole industry for a time. If you are linked to a series of news about the Ningde era in the early stage, Sunwoda and other battery companies that are not currently ranked high in China see the opportunity to become bigger and stronger. 】
Written| by Zhang Chi and edited by | Kang Qiao
In the domestic electric vehicle power battery market, Sunwoda is not well-known. Compared with the top-ranked Ningde era and BYD, both in terms of market share and volume, there is a long gap. However, Sunwoda is an important player in the field of domestic consumer electronics batteries, providing consumer lithium batteries for smart hardware products such as mobile phones, notebook computers and sweeping robots, especially in the global shipment of smart phone batteries, occupying 30% of the market share. If you go back to 10 years ago, Ningde Era and BYD, which are now ranked in the top two in the electric vehicle market, initially started from the battery of consumer electronics, and only obtained today's market position through the later transformation and grasped the opportunities of the domestic electric vehicle market. In the case of the mature power battery technology in the domestic electric vehicle market, it is not impossible for Sunwoda to replicate the road traveled by ningde era and BYD.
From the fact that Sunwoda's capital increase and share expansion can attract so much investment at once, and include the top three new forces such as Wei Xiaoli in one fell swoop, there are several phenomena worth exploring carefully.
Dependence in the Ningde era is becoming more and more urgent
Through the companies leading the investment in the following figure, it can be found that the car and home are the ideal system, the Sky Top is the Xiaopeng system, and the Weirui Entrepreneurship is the Weilai system. Behind Wei Xiaoli's joint efforts is the anxiety about the power battery of electric vehicles. At present, the situation of a dominant company in the domestic Ningde era still exists, and the continuous increase in the penetration rate of electric vehicles in the domestic automobile market means that the demand for batteries by major OEMs will still be at a high level. In this case, the safety of the battery supply chain has even become a key influencing factor in determining the success or failure of car companies.
Different from the traditional internal combustion engine era, the era of intelligent electric vehicles, as a power battery that occupies more than 1/3 of the cost of electric vehicles, its every move will have a huge impact on enterprises. Therefore, from the perspective of the main engine factory, it is definitely necessary to ensure the reliability and stability of its own battery supply. Previously, GM of the United States not only spent $2 billion on the recall of the Bolt involved, but also suspended the sale of new cars, and the impact is self-evident. As for the domestic market, due to the insufficient supply of lithium iron phosphate batteries, Xiaopeng had to postpone the delivery of new cars. This not only affected the sales data of car companies, but also led to a large number of customer complaints. It has been rumored in the industry that He Xiaopeng, chairman and CEO of Xiaopeng Automobile, "squatted" for a week in the Ningde era in order to smoothly get the goods.
From the perspective of vehicle companies, especially for new car companies, it is an intolerable problem that orders are sufficient but cannot be delivered. For car companies like Wei Xiaoli, the gross profit margin of bicycles has already turned positive. Through the delivery of vehicles, not only can the company earn considerable profits, reduce the overall loss, while the monthly release of higher delivery figures, to boost the market and investor confidence also plays a pivotal role. Therefore, the optimization and double insurance of the electric vehicle battery supply chain will become a more obvious feature of the domestic battery market in the future, and it is also possible to let a group of originally unknown battery companies from behind the scenes to the front of the stage, to obtain a wave of rapid growth opportunities.
Why Sunwoda?
Why major car companies are optimistic about Sunwoda, there are two main reasons:
First, Sunwoda's own accumulation is not bad. Although the battery in the field of consumer electronics is much lower than the requirement of the vehicle power battery, it is also a battery after all. Through a large number of projects in the past, Sunwoda itself has accumulated rich experience in battery projects, which is much more reliable than those who hope to use this outlet to make batteries from scratch.
Second, at present, there are not many mainstream battery companies in the market that can choose to invest, and the situation of more monks and fewer porridges is still relatively serious. CATL and AVIC Innovation are currently the two leading battery companies in China, the former is larger, occupying half of the domestic power battery; the latter is rising strongly and is currently seeking an IPO. In addition, Volkswagen is a shareholder of Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Mercedes-Benz has invested in Fu Neng Technology, and Hive is a subsidiary hatched by the Great Wall, and these three have close ties with vehicle companies. Therefore, if you want to find a suitable battery company that can be invested, there are actually only a few for Wei Xiaoli.
What is the development situation of Sunwoda in the later period?
At present, Sunwoda's customers in the domestic electric vehicle market are relatively limited, mainly Geely and Dongfeng. With the success of this capital increase, Sunwoda is expected to rapidly expand its circle of friends in the domestic automotive industry, and provide battery products to more vehicle companies in the short term, at least becoming the Plan B of many vehicle companies.
However, in the long run, whether Sunwoda can rely on this capital increase to succeed and use this as an opportunity to rebuild its system competitiveness is particularly critical. On the one hand, Sunwoda definitely needs to carry out research and development, and make breakthroughs in several key technical bottlenecks of today's power batteries. If there is no competitive product, being abandoned by capital is a matter of moments. On the other hand, while rapidly expanding production capacity, Sunwoda should also pay attention to the improvement of its various capabilities in supply chain, quality, logistics and so on. Enterprises grow rapidly in the short term, and there will inevitably be many problems brought about by the process of rapid growth. Circumventing these problems in the early stage can help enterprises save a lot of effort and energy in the later stage.
Comments
The situation of the Ningde era being dominant in China will certainly change in the next few years. Especially if you support this situation, it is only because of the earlier force and the relatively large production capacity. Production capacity can be obtained through late capital investment, in the case of global high optimism about power batteries, there is no technology moat market leader, will inevitably be surpassed by competitors, may be the current competitors like Sunwoda or AVIC lithium battery, in terms of volume is still far smaller than the Ningde era. But with the evolution of time and technology, it is really difficult to say who will be the next Ningde era.
(This article is the original of "Heyan Reading Car", without authorization, it may not be reproduced)