Introduction: While doubling the growth rate to create tens of billions of revenue, but encountering the soaring price of raw materials, ushering in the 20th anniversary of the company's establishment of Yiwei Lithium Energy, where will the future go?
On April 25, Ewell Lithium Energy released its 2021 financial report. The most interesting thing is that with a year-on-year growth rate of 107.06%, its operating income exceeded the 10 billion mark for the first time, reaching 16.9 billion yuan, setting a historical record in the past five years.
Among them, the consumer battery business achieved revenue of about 6.9 billion yuan, an increase of 67.79% year-on-year; the power battery business revenue of 10 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 146.25%.
Such revenue performance ranks 26th among the 48 major auto industry listed companies that released their 2021 annual results as of April 26, even among the 17 companies in the hot new energy and intelligent sector last year, it can also rank 6th, and even ranks 4th if it is from the perspective of revenue growth.
2021 coincides with the 20th anniversary of the establishment of Ewell Lithium Energy Company, and it should be said that such a performance is enough to make people excited for a while. However, the weather is unpredictable, and the soaring price of new energy that began to sweep the world in the fourth quarter of 2021 caught people off guard, and Ewell Lithium Energy was not spared.
1) 20 years of foundation, how much market value can be exchanged?
Like most stocks in the new energy and intelligent sectors, Ewell Lithium Energy's stock price and market value have soared in the past year. Especially in late November 2021, the stock price of Ewell Lithium Energy once exceeded the historical peak of 150 yuan / share, and the market value also stood at the historical high of 280 billion yuan, looking forward to 300 billion yuan.
However, then people found that the market value of 300 billion yuan that seemed to be within reach at that time, and later Ewell Lithium Energy could only look at it for the time being. In the last month of the end of the year, the stock price and market value of Ewell Lithium Energy continued to decline. As of April 25, the annual report was released, the industry challenges brought about by the rise in new energy prices, superimposed A-share plunge, the stock price of Yiwei Lithium Energy fell to 56.4 yuan / share, a two-thirds contraction at a higher point, and the market value was also facing the danger of falling below the 100 billion mark.
People quickly found an anomaly in the fourth quarter of 2021 from the financial report of EWELL Lithium Energy. Although revenue increased steadily, reaching 5.452 billion yuan, almost one-third of the annual revenue, the net profit attributable to the mother was only 690 million yuan, only slightly higher than the first quarter. In particular, the net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company after deducting non-recurring gains and losses (hereinafter referred to as the non-net profit) fell to the lowest of the year at 417 million yuan, while the net cash flow from operating activities soared from 63.64 million yuan in the third quarter to 1.465 billion yuan. Obviously, In the last quarter of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the company, Ewell Lithium energy encountered a lot of trouble.
The problem is, this is not the end. According to the statistics of the High Industry Research Institute (GGII) through the caliber of new energy vehicle traffic insurance, among the top 10 domestic new energy vehicle power battery installed in the first quarter of 2022, Yiwei lithium energy ranked at the bottom, especially the installed capacity was even less than half of the previous Lishen.
2) Investment income reached a new high, and Smore International turned the tide
People familiar with Ewell Lithium Energy may be very clear about what Smol International Holdings Limited ("Smol International") means to Ewell Lithium Energy. In each of the past financial reports, the participation in Simmer International has brought rich returns to Ewell Lithium Energy, and 2021 is no exception.
According to the data, in 2021, among the investment gains and losses recognized by Ewell Lithium energy under the equity method, Smol International reached 1.68 billion yuan. On this basis, the investment income of Ewell Lithium Energy in 2021 also reached a record high of 1.758 billion yuan.
In fact, from the perspective of Simmer International, Ewell Lithium Energy is indeed qualified to "make money lying down". Looking back at the financial data of the past five years, the revenue and net profit of Simar International in 2021 both broke the historical record, with 13.755 billion yuan and 5.287 billion yuan respectively. It is worth mentioning that although the revenue growth rate is only 37.41%, the year-on-year growth rate of net profit has reached 120.29%, almost returning to the high growth trend of two years ago.
However, the problem is that the electronic atomizer (e-cigarette) market in which Smore International is located is very obviously affected by the policies and regulations of various countries around the world. In less than a quarter at the beginning of 2022, in China alone, it was affected by the domestic "E-cigarette Management Measures" and the CERTIFICATION of some atomized e-cigarette products by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and its stock price first fell to a record low of 14.22 yuan / share on March 15, and then created a single-day increase of 8.3% on April 27. Unfortunately, such a performance seems to be only a flash in the pan, and the next day, the stock price of Simmer International fell by 15.56%, and the lowest touched the low level of 14.3 yuan / share.
That is to say, the outstanding performance of Simar International in the past five years may not be the key to the profitability of EWELL Lithium energy in the next 20 years.
3) Escort for the next 20 years, must be profitability
Although the net profit performance of Ewell Lithium energy in 2021 hit a record high (net profit attributable to the mother of 2.906 billion yuan, deducting non-net profit of 2.547 billion yuan), the year-on-year growth rate also reached 75.89% and 66.96%, respectively, as of April 26, the comprehensive performance of the 17 new energy and intelligent listed companies registered in the automotive K-line statistics ranked in the forefront. But as mentioned above, starting from the fourth quarter of 2021, the price increase impact encountered by the whole industry has made Ewell Lithium very passive at the time point of opening the next 20 years.
From the composition of operating costs, it is not difficult to find that the proportion of raw materials in the operating cost of Ewell Lithium Energy in 2021 has increased from 77.26% in 2020 to 83.02%, and the amount has increased by 145.8% year-on-year to 11 billion yuan, which is the highest proportion and growth rate in the cost composition.
At the same time, the operating cost of Ewell Lithium Energy soared from 5.794 billion yuan in 2020 to 13.254 billion yuan, and the gross profit margin fell by 7.44% year-on-year to 21.57%. By product, the gross profit margin of the lithium primary battery that Ewell Lithium Energy is best at is very stable, still sticking to 41.56%, down only 0.33% year-on-year, but the lithium-ion battery products that account for 88.94% of the revenue have become the hardest hit areas, due to the cost growth rate of more than 20 percentage points higher than the revenue, resulting in a gross profit margin of 7.11%, only 19.02%.
In the past 20 years, we can clearly find that Ewell Lithium Energy has a very unique and accurate market capture ability in the industry, from the initial solid foundation through lithium primary batteries, and ten years ago, in the way of participating in Simer International, on the one hand, digesting its own battery business, while also taking advantage of a wave of electronic cigarettes to exchange for the possibility of "lying and making money".
In the face of the domestic electric vehicle market, in 2021, Ewell Lithium Energy has been busy expanding the scope of partners, opening up upstream lithium suppliers, joining hands with lithium battery separator supplier Enjie Shares, and also winning the fixed point of Jaguar Land Rover.
From the financial report, it can be clearly felt that Ewell Lithium Energy is still "cultivating internal strength", and in the 5-page development expenditure content, it can see the various specific research and development projects of Ewell Lithium Energy, which is also one of the core reasons why its research and development expenses have increased sharply from 684 million yuan in 2020 to 1.31 billion yuan in 2021.
In fact, among the auto stocks, there are not a few who have similar experiences with EWELL Lithium Energy in the fourth quarter of 2021, and even Joyson Electronics has received an inquiry letter from the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
Looking back at the entire 2021, as of April 26, the 17 new energy and intelligent listed companies counted by the automotive K-line have an average revenue increase of 63.89% and a net profit increase of 148.33%. Obviously, when the company was established 20 years ago, When The company's 20-year-old lithium can double its revenue and break through 10 billion, it also reflects the shortcomings of general profitability under the environment of the industry and other large environments.
In the past 20 years, With a keen sense of market smell, Yiwei Lithium has embarked on a very distinctive development path; in the next 20 years, profitability has become a severe challenge in front of it.