The power battery giant listed in the Ningde era is just around the
corner. The lithium battery "veteran" who once ranked in the first line
of the camp – Tianjin Lishen also launched a tough battle to reshape the
industry.
On April 23, some domestic media sources said
that Chinese battery manufacturer Tianjin Lishen Co., Ltd. plans to open
a sales office in Germany. At the same time, the company is working
with local automakers including Volkswagen and Daimler. The negotiations
aimed to provide batteries for the electric vehicles of the
above-mentioned automobile manufacturers.
In order to
confirm the news, Time Weekly reporter contacted many middle and
high-level personnel of Tianjin Lishen, and did not receive a
corresponding reply as of the press release. However, previous media
reports said that Tianjin Lishen's new office in Germany will be located
in Wolfsburg, near the headquarters of Volkswagen, and sources close to
Volkswagen also revealed that Volkswagen is in deep negotiations with
Tianjin Lishen, but have not signed the final agreement.
Under
the background of European countries vigorously developing new energy
power batteries, due to the lack of local battery manufacturers in
Europe, this market has become a market for power battery companies such
as China, Japan and South Korea. It can be seen that Tianjin Lishen,
which plans to set up a sales office in Germany, is also targeting this
market opportunity.
However, unlike the Ningde era, which
has already taken the lead in the European market development, the
industry believes that Tianjin Lishen's entry into Germany has more
meanings for boosting its performance and reshaping its position in the
industry.
Ke Mo, chief analyst of True Lithium Research,
said to reporters: "I am very pleased to see that Lishen has the
ambition. Lishen is the earliest lithium-ion battery company in China.
It is the Huangpu special Academy of China's lithium battery. With the
institutional mechanism, Lishen has the conditions and ability to do
well."
Entering Germany to boost performance
In
the past month or so, the news that domestic power battery
manufacturers won the international big orders has been continuously
spread, and the first to eat crabs is the Ningde era of the current
A-share IPO "lightning over".
On March 13, Volkswagen
Group CEO Mulun revealed at the group's annual meeting that as of now,
Volkswagen Group's battery purchase orders in Europe and China have
reached 20 billion Euros, and the company's first Chinese battery
partner is In the Ningde era; in addition, Daimler, the parent company
of Mercedes-Benz, also said that Daimler has signed a contract with the
Ningde era. In the future, whether in China or globally, Mercedes-Benz
electric vehicles will use Chinese batteries.
It is
reported that in the auto industry entering the competition of R&D
and manufacturing of new energy vehicles, multinational auto
manufacturers including Volkswagen and Daimler are vigorously promoting
the transformation of the power vehicle field. Among them, the
Volkswagen Group launched the electrification strategy “Road map E” in
2017. The strategy plans to produce 3 million electric vehicles per year
by 2025 and launch more than 80 new electric models. Currently, the new
energy vehicle points are Zero Daimler is also working with Chinese new
and old partners to jointly promote the layout of the new energy
vehicle industry, and has announced the investment in building battery
factories in Thailand and China.
The expansion of the
above-mentioned two major auto companies in the development of power
vehicles directly brings about a substantial increase in the demand for
upstream power batteries. According to the global battery procurement
tender previously announced by the Volkswagen Group, the amount of the
order is as high as 50 billion Euros. In addition, a statement issued by
the German Automobile Industry Federation recently stated that the
German automotive industry plans to invest 40 billion Euros in electric
vehicle research and development by 2020.
In the general
market of overcapacity of domestic power battery companies, the European
market of tens of billions of Euros is undoubtedly an attractive cake,
but it was once ranked in the industry compared with the above-mentioned
Ningde era, where the momentum of development is fierce and
successfully cut into this market. Tianjin Lishen in the first camp
faced a decline in industry status and performance.
It is
understood that as a veteran state-owned enterprise in the domestic
lithium battery industry, Tianjin Lishen ranked third in terms of
shipments of approximately 1.2GWh in 2015, after ranking in the list of
major domestic power battery shipments in the BYD and Ningde era.
However, or by 2017, Tianjin Lishen's ranking has slipped to sixth
place, while Wattmar, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, BAK Power and other late-stage
companies are catching up.
What is more serious is that on
the one hand, Tianjin Lishen's 2017 results show that its 2017 annual
operating income has decreased by nearly 100 million Yuan compared with
2016, and its net profit has suffered a large loss: from 2016's profit
of 2.83. 100 million Yuan fell to a loss of 348 million Yuan; on the
other hand, the market share of the industry further gathered toward
leading enterprises, of which the market share of the Ningde era rose
from 30% in 2017 to more than half proportion of the recently announced
March installed capacity.
When the industry situation
shifted from "two-headed" to a single big one, the crisis of reshuffled
the resurgence prompted many companies including Tianjin Lishen to seek
change. Ke Mo, chief analyst of True Lithium Research, said that if
Tianjin Lishen can seize this opportunity, it will be of great help to
boost its morale and increase the confidence of the company.
Adjust and start again
In
fact, the power battery customers of Tianjin Lishen show that they
mainly supply domestic or Chinese-foreign joint venture brands such as
Dongfeng, FAW, BAIC, SAIC, Wuzhoulong, Changan and Geely, and they still
need to expand in the international car enterprise customers. If this
time can be successfully negotiated with Volkswagen or Daimler, it will
become a substantial step for Tianjin Lishen to directly enter the
international market.
Mokke said to the reporter of Time
Weekly: "I am very pleased to see that Lishen has the ambition. Lishen
is the earliest lithium-ion battery company established in China. It is
the Huangpu special Academy of China's lithium battery. It is very
comprehensive and uncertain. There is a lot of possibility for customers
to talk about, but there are certainly some. As long as the system is
rationalized, there are conditions and capabilities to do well."
According
to an industry analyst who did not want to be named, the Times Weekly
reporter pointed out that the main factors of Tianjin Lishen’s poor
performance in the past two years were its internal decision-making,
poor incentive mechanism, and serious brain drain. The ever-changing
lithium battery industry is very terrible."
However, from
the adjustment measures of Tianjin Lishen and its shareholder companies
in 2017, they have begun to realize the above problems and launched a
series of directions for school flights.
According to
Chunlin Zhou, chairman of Tianjin Lishen Shareholders Co., Ltd., Chunlin
Zhou, released in March, “The second economic growth pole of the
Group’s power generation company”, the company’s organizational
structure will be adjusted to create “four 1+N” basic business entity
architecture, and in the two core business segments of military power
supply and power battery, the division of force products is divided into
military business and civilian battery business, in which military
business is injected into the listing platform.
According
to the market dynamics revealed by the Mercury in the past year, on
March 26, 2018, in the major asset restructuring plan announced by ST
Jialing, Zhongdian Power and Tianjin Lishen, as the trading parties, are
operating special power supplies. The space power of the business and
the equity of Lishen Telecommunications were sold as targets to *ST
Jialing. This also means that while the ST Jialing completed the
business transformation by this restructuring the adjustment of the
power system also completed one of the steps.
In addition,
as Chunlin Zhou emphasized in the above article, the company's
adjustment is to deepen the Group's strategic layout in the new energy
industry, and Tianjin Lishen, which is positioned as a highly
lithium-ion supplier, has also increased its business outside the
consumer electronics business. The layout of the power battery business,
the company's production capacity has gradually expanded.
According
to the data, in May 2017, Lishen's 2 billion WH power battery base in
Qingdao started construction. In July, Lishen invested a total of 2.1
billion Yuan. The 21700 power battery project with an annual output of
4Gwh was put into production first, and the first 21700 in China was
launched. Customized production line; In November, with the completion
of the new fully automated factory in Tianjin (sixth phase), Lishen's
annual production capacity reached 10 billion watt-hours. According to
previous media reports, Tianjin Lishen expects production capacity to
reach 20 billion watt-hours per year in 2020 and 50 billion watt-hours
per year in 2025.
However, whether the new opportunities
for the development of the power battery industry can help Tianjin
Lishen reshape the industry remains to be tested. It is understood that
with the expansion of Tianjin Lishen in the power battery business, the
company's debt ratio and other financial data also showed large
fluctuations.
In addition, it is worth noting that the
above-mentioned industry analysts who did not want to be named said that
when Tianjin Lishen looked at the international market, although it is
still a representative enterprise in China in terms of battery
technology and manufacturing capabilities, it is in the European market.
Tianjin Lishen also faces strong opponents from Japan and South Korea.
The page contains the contents of the machine translation.
