Tianjin lishen to enter Germany, the old lithium battery manufacturers to revive momentum

The power battery giant ningde times is about to go public. Tianjin lishen, a lithium battery veteran who once stood in the front line, has also launched a battle to rebuild its position in the industry.

Chinese battery maker tianjin lishen is planning to open a sales office in Germany, according to local media reports on April 23, as it talks with local automakers including Volkswagen and Daimler to supply batteries for their electric cars.

In order to confirm the news, time weekly reporter contacted a number of tianjin lishen high - and middle-level, as of press has not received the corresponding response. However, previous media reports have suggested that tianjin lishen's new German office will be located in wolfsburg, near the headquarters of Volkswagen, while sources close to Volkswagen have said the company is in advanced talks with tianjin lishen but no final agreement has been signed.

In the context of the vigorous development of new energy power batteries in European countries, due to the lack of local battery manufacturers in Europe, this market has become the market that China, Japan and South Korea and other power battery companies compete to layout. It can be seen that tianjin lishen, which plans to set up a sales office in Germany, also aims at this market opportunity.

But different from the ningde era, which has taken the lead in the development of the European market, insiders believe that tianjin lishen's entry into Germany this time has more implications for boosting its performance and reshaping its position in the industry.

"It's good to see lishen has ambitions again," mo ke, chief analyst of lithium metal research, said to time weekly. Lishen is the earliest lithium ion battery company established in China and the whampoa military academy of lithium battery in China.

The move into Germany boosted earnings

In the past month or so, the news that domestic power battery manufacturers have won large international orders keeps coming out, and the first to eat crab is now in the a-share IPO "lightning" ningde era.

On March 13, CEO of Volkswagen group muren revealed at the annual meeting of the group that up to now, the amount of battery purchase order between Volkswagen group in Europe and China has reached 20 billion euros, and the company's first battery partner in China is ningde times. In addition, Daimler, the parent company of mercedes-benz, said that it has signed a contract with ningde times, and in the future, both in China and globally, mercedes-benz electric cars will use Chinese battery cells.

Multinational carmakers including Volkswagen and Daimler are pushing for the transformation of the power car sector as the industry enters the race to develop and manufacture new energy vehicles. Among them, the Volkswagen group in 2017 launched the "RoadmapE" electrification strategy, the strategic plan by 2025 annual production of 3 million electric cars, and over 80 new electric vehicles, and now on the new energy automobile integral zero Daimler is combined Chinese old and new partners to promote the new energy vehicle industry layout, have announced, Chinese investment in construction battery factories in Thailand.

The expansion of the above two automobile enterprises in the field 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 Volkswagen group, the order target amount of up to 50 billion euros. Meanwhile, the German auto industry plans to invest 40 billion euros in research and development of electric cars by 2020, according to a statement released by the federation of German automobile manufacturers.

Under the general situation of overcapacity of domestic power battery enterprises, the market of 10 billion euros in Europe is undoubtedly an attractive cake. However, compared with the ningde era when the development momentum is vigorous and successfully enters into this market, tianjin lishen, which once ranked the first in the industry, is facing the decline of the industry status and performance.

It is understood that, as an old state-owned enterprise in the domestic lithium battery industry, tianjin lishen in 2015 with about 1. 2GWh's shipments, in the domestic main power battery shipments ranking byd and ningde times, ranked third. However, by the end of 2017, tianjin lishen has slipped to the sixth place, while the laggards such as watmar, guoxuan high-tech and bike power are catching up.

What's more serious is that, on the one hand, the 2017 performance of tianjin lishen revealed that its annual operating income in 2017 was nearly 100 million yuan less than that in 2016, and its net profit showed a big loss: 2. It slipped to a loss of 3. 3 billion yuan. 4.8 billion yuan; On the other hand, the market share of the industry is further gathering to the leading enterprises, among which the market share of ningde era has increased from 30% in the whole year of 2017 to more than half of the equipment installed in March recently announced.

When the industry situation from "two squeeze" to a single under the crisis, the reshuffle intensified the crisis prompted many enterprises, including tianjin lishen to seek change. If tianjin lishen can seize this opportunity, it will help boost its morale and increase the company's confidence, said mo ke, chief analyst of zhenli research.

reset

In fact, according to the power battery customers of tianjin lishen, they mainly supply to domestic or foreign joint venture brands such as dongfeng, faw, baic, saic, wuzhoulong, changan and geely, and there is still room for expansion in terms of international automobile enterprise customers. If this negotiation with Volkswagen or Daimler is successful, it will be a substantial step for tianjin lishen directly to enter the international market.

"It's good to see that lishen is ambitious again. Lishen is China's earliest lithium ion battery company, is China's whampoa lithium battery military academy, very rich, not sure how likely to talk down the two customers, but there is certainly some, as long as the reasonable system mechanism, lishen has the conditions also have the ability to do well.

According to an industry analyst who asked not to be named, tianjin lishen's poor performance in the past two years is mainly due to its sluggish internal decision-making, poor incentive mechanism and serious brain drain.

However, from the adjustment measures of tianjin lishen and its shareholders since 2017, it has begun to realize the above problems and launched a series of direction school.

According to tianjin lishen shareholders in the company, the electric power co., LTD., chairman of the board of directors chun-lin zhou god released in March "build group co., LTD. The second economic growth pole of the power full open" article, according to the power of god will be to adjust the company organizational structure, to make "1 + N" four basic business entity framework, and around the military power and power battery in two core business segments, tied lishen products for military and civilian battery business, including military business into the listed platform.

Combing the market dynamics disclosed by lishen department in the past year shows that on March 26, 2018, in the major asset restructuring plan announced by * ST jialing, China power and tianjin lishen, as the transaction parties, sold the space power and the equity of lishen special power as the target to * ST jialing. This also means that * ST jialing by the reorganization to complete the business transformation at the same time, the adjustment of the system also completed one step.

In addition, as zhou chunlin emphasized in the above article, the company's adjustment is to deepen the group's layout in the new energy industry strategy, and tianjin lishen, which is positioned as a highly lithium ion supplier, has also increased the layout of power battery business in addition to the consumer electronics business, and the company's capacity has been gradually expanded.

According to the data, in May 2017, the 2 billion WH power battery base of lishen in Qingdao was started. Then in July, the total investment of lishen was 2.1 billion yuan. The 21700 power battery project with an annual output of 4Gwh was put into production first, and the first 21700 customized product production line was launched. In November, with the completion of lishen tianjin's new full automation plant (phase 6), lishen's annual capacity reached 10 gigawatt-hours. According to previous media reports, tianjin lishen expects to produce 20 gigawatt-hours per year in 2020 and 50 gigawatt-hours per year in 2025.

However, whether the new opportunities for the development of the power battery industry can help tianjin lishen reshape its position remains to be tested by the market. It is understood that with the expansion of tianjin lishen power battery business, the company's debt ratio and other financial data also appear large fluctuations.

It is also worth noting that while tianjin lishen remains a representative Chinese company in battery technology and manufacturing capacity when it looks internationally, it also faces strong rivals from Japan and South Korea in the European market, said the industry analyst, who declined to be named.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.