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The rapid development of the new energy automobile industry has directly driven the leapfrog development of power batteries.
However, with the decline of new energy subsidies at the end of last year, terminal demand has weakened, and raw material prices have fallen, falling below 200,000 yuan / ton in April this year.
Under the roller coaster-like price changes, the power battery industry has also changed from lively to having to take the initiative to adjust.
As a dark horse enterprise of power batteries, how does China Innovation Aviation, which ranks among the top three in the industry, seek progress in the midst of change?
Top 3 in China and top 5 in the world
China Innovation Aviation accelerates the release of potential
China Innovation Aviation is definitely a dark horse in the field of power batteries, and after the strategic transformation from commercial vehicles to passenger cars in 2018, the installed capacity has risen rapidly, and it has now ranked among the top three power batteries in China.
According to public information, the predecessor of China Innovation Aviation is AVIC Lithium Battery, which was established in 2007, and was originally jointly invested and established by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China and its affiliated units.
In 2022, China Innovation Airlines will be listed on the Hong Kong stock market. Fifteen cornerstone investors participated in the IPO subscription. More than half of them are listed industrial companies or their subsidiaries. From the shareholding structure, it can be seen that China Innovation Airlines is a state-owned enterprise holding and listed companies in the industrial chain actively participate in cornerstone investment.
After the transformation of the passenger track, the power battery business of China Innovation Aviation has developed rapidly. At present, China Innovation Aviation has established a number of industrial bases in Jiangsu, Fujian, Sichuan, Hubei, Anhui, Guangdong and other industries, completing a comprehensive domestic industrial layout.
From the perspective of customers, GAC, a major customer of China Innovation Aviation, contributed a lot of revenue to the company, and then quickly expanded new force customers such as Xpeng, Zerorun and NIO, and served well-known customers such as State Grid and State Power Investment in energy storage.
The data shows that from 2019 to 2021, the total number of customers increased from 114 to 171, and the average revenue of a single customer gradually increased from 15.21 million to 39.87 million.
According to the 2022 annual report of China Innovation Airlines, the company's operating income in 2022 will be 20.37 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 198.88%; the net profit attributable to the parent was 692 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 393.92%; Net operating cash flow was RMB2.1 billion, up 32.6% year-on-year.
According to the latest data from the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, the top three domestic power battery companies in April 2023 were CATL, BYD and China Innovation Aviation. Among them, China Innovation Airlines accounted for 8.74% in April.
Moreover, the proportion of China Innovation Airlines is in a relatively stable upward stage. In 2022, the proportion of innovation airlines was 6.63%, and the proportion has risen to 8.21% in the first four months of this year.
In addition, according to the latest data from the South Korean research institute SNE, in April, China Innovation Aviation ranked fifth in the installed capacity of global power battery companies, surpassing South Korea's SK On and Samsung SDI.
In the global power battery market, the top five Chinese companies account for three, dominating half of the new energy market.
From the perspective of the proportion of ternary battery installations, China Innovation Aviation has steadily occupied the second position, and gradually narrowed the gap with the Ningde era.
China Innovation Aviation is a microcosm of the rapid development of China's power battery industry.
The industry is in a period of rising capacity
The short-term adjustment has limited impact on leading companies
Obviously, in the 2022 of new energy vehicles, power battery companies are more optimistic. One of the important manifestations is the expansion of production and the efforts to increase production capacity.
Statistics show that in 2022, the four battery manufacturers of CATL, BYD, China Innovation Aviation and Sunwoda will have started as many as 14 power battery expansion projects in 2022, with a total disclosed investment of 122.8 billion yuan and a total production capacity of more than 500GWh after being put into operation.
According to statistics from the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, at the end of 2022, mainland power battery companies have built more than 900GWh production lines, and the overall production capacity is structural excess, low-end production capacity is idle, and high-end production capacity is in short supply.
From the specific capacity data, the production of power batteries is increasing rapidly, far exceeding the increase in installed volume.
In 2022, the cumulative output of mainland power batteries will be 545.9GWh, a cumulative increase of 148.5% year-on-year. Last year, the cumulative installed capacity of power batteries was 294.6GWh.
There is a balance of about 250GWh in the middle, and this part of the balance has become the inventory of power battery companies and new energy vehicle companies.
The average installed capacity of a new energy vehicle is 50kWh, and 250GWh means that it can load almost 5 million vehicles. The total sales of new energy vehicles in 2022 will be less than 7 million units.
For comparison, the power battery surplus in 2021 is about 70GWh, which can load 1.4 million vehicles, and the total sales of new energy vehicles in 2021 will only be 3.5 million units.
From the data point of view, the hidden danger of overcapacity is relatively large.
The most direct result of the expansion is to push up the price of raw materials, and also affect the price of terminal new energy vehicles to a certain extent, but this radical state was quickly corrected by the market.
In 2022, with the decline of new energy subsidies and the traditional off-season in the first quarter, the demand for power batteries has decreased sharply.
Data show that the installed capacity of power batteries in January this year decreased from 36.15GWh in December last year to 16.13GWh, a direct halving. Correspondingly, the output of power batteries is also halved to 37GWh.
Since January, both power battery production and installed capacity have entered an upward trend.
Transmitted to raw materials, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate fell all the way from the highest 600,000 yuan / ton, and began to rebound after less than 200,000 yuan / ton at the end of April, and has now returned to the price of 300,000 yuan / ton, basically the same level as at the beginning of last year.
Understand the logic of industry adjustment, but we should also note that for different battery companies, the impact of adjustment is still hugely different.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are more affected, and the impact of leading enterprises is actually limited, and it is more short-term pressure. A more detailed analysis is provided below.
Brokerage institutions are optimistic and new products are frequent
China Innovation Aviation has created a strong new force
Optimizing production capacity and destocking is a thorny issue for power battery companies.
Optimizing production capacity includes two levels, one is to reduce capacity and the other is to optimize the structure.
The inventory problem of the power battery industry chain has been very obvious, and the crazy production in previous years and the hoarding behavior under the high price began to pay for blind expansion in the first half of this year.
Capacity expansion coupled with oversupply, orders decreased, some companies began to reduce capacity, and production lines had to stop.
In order to reduce costs and increase efficiency, many battery companies take the initiative to optimize personnel, which is also an inevitable measure to optimize production capacity. After the industry gradually returns to rationality, battery companies also have to re-examine the future development route.
Another aspect of optimizing capacity is structural optimization, which includes the elimination of outdated capacity. Especially for small and medium-sized battery enterprises, their production lines are relatively backward, comprehensive costs are high, equipment is aging, low-end overcapacity, and high-end production capacity is insufficient.
For the head battery companies, the production capacity can be well digested, but the competition is also very fierce. The power battery industry is highly concentrated, and CATL, BYD, and China Innovation Aviation, which are the top 3 in the industry, occupy 70%-80% of the market share.
Head battery companies are also deeply bound to downstream customers. They benefit from brand effects, technological advantages, economies of scale, customer service capabilities, or will remain industry leaders for a long time.
For leading companies, there is no shortage of customers. What is in front of them is the consideration of longer-term development, rather than being satisfied with putting down, and the competition of the head battery company can be said to be more intense.
For the dark horse of the industry represented by China Innovation Aviation, how did it achieve rapid catch-up?
Data show that in April, China Innovation Aviation accounted for 17.29% of the domestic ternary power battery market share, which was increasing year-on-year.
China Innovation Aviation is constantly improving its product strength, cost, R&D and production.
China Innovation Aviation has become the only power battery enterprise in the world with the ability to provide both lithium iron phosphate and ternary battery models for OEMs.
China Innovation Aviation has the technology and products in the mainstream battery type, and the products and technologies have been rapidly iterating in recent years.
In terms of battery life and safety, China Innovation Aviation is the first power battery enterprise in China to pass the safety test of ternary battery "needle puncture experiment".
The new One-Stop battery platform and integration technology for the TWh era is the fourth package form product after cylindrical, soft package and square, which greatly improves integration efficiency and manufacturing efficiency and reduces costs.
Based on the One-Stop design concept, guided by cost reduction and modularity, the forward design has a simplified structure with completely independent intellectual property rights, and a number of new technologies are used for the first time in the industry, which has advantages in energy density, safety and economy.
OS battery platform and integration technology are suitable for mainstream battery material systems such as lithium iron phosphate and ternary. At present, OS iron lithium battery packs have been launched, which is the highest energy density product in the industry.
The recently released top-flow cylindrical battery is another innovation based on OS minimalist design, achieving the industry's highest energy density of 300Wh/kg in ternary materials, reducing structural internal resistance by 50%, and improving space utilization by 3%.
At present, the company's core products of power batteries include high-voltage ternary batteries, magazine batteries (developed in deep cooperation with GAC AION), all-pole ear laminated batteries, and One-Stop, forming a relatively complete product matrix.
At the same time, in order to broaden the market, more and more battery companies choose to go overseas, and China Innovation Aviation is also actively expanding overseas markets.
Data show that in the first four months of this year, mainland power battery exports reached 34.6GWh, and the mainland is currently the largest exporter of lithium batteries.
Among the new foreign trade samples, the average annual growth rate of lithium batteries from 2017 to 2022 is 44.9%, second only to electric vehicles.
From the perspective of the global power battery market, China Innovation Aviation has entered the fifth place in the world, and there are only two overseas battery companies in the top five.
In the future, in overseas markets, domestic battery companies like China Innovation Airlines still have a lot of room for development.
In general, the power battery industry from last year's fury to this year's adjustment is an inevitable process for the industry to return to rational development.
The impact of this adjustment on small and medium-sized battery companies is more obvious, and it will cause short-term pressure on head companies.
According to the latest research report of Xiniu Securities, due to the rapid decline in upstream costs and product prices, and the pressure on the sales growth of new energy vehicles in the first quarter, the sales, selling prices and profit forecasts of China Innovation Aviation products were lowered accordingly.
However, the report pointed out that in the medium term, it is believed that China Innovation Airlines can still benefit from the scale effect, partially offsetting the impact of the decline in product prices. The report maintains a "buy" rating on China Innovation Airlines.
The industrial chain has returned to rationality, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles is still increasing rapidly, and power batteries are still an imaginative business.