Securities Times reporter Mao Kexin
The price adjustment was gradually implemented, the gross profit margin of CATL (300750) improved, and its third-quarter performance exceeded market expectations.
On the evening of October 21, Ningde Times released its third quarterly report. In the third quarter, the operating income was 97.37 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 232.5%; the net profit attributable to the parent was 9.42 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 188.42%. This performance exceeded market expectations, and the net profit has exceeded the total in the first half of the year. In the first half of the year, CATL achieved a net profit of 8.17 billion yuan attributable to the parent.
As of the end of the third quarter, the inventory balance of CATL was 79.025 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 96.58%. The company stated that it was mainly due to the growth of business scale and the increase in in-transit materials with the growth of overseas shipments. In addition, the company has nearly 158.6 billion yuan in monetary funds, a year-on-year increase of 78.05%.
Rising raw material prices have brought cost pressure since the beginning of this year, but after adjustment of product prices, the gross profit margin of CATL has rebounded. The financial report shows that the company’s revenue in the first three quarters was 210.34 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 186.72%; operating costs were 170.48 billion yuan, an increase of 220.58% greater than revenue. The consolidated gross profit margin in the third quarter was 19.3%, which continued to increase from 18.7% in the first half of the year.
Lithium carbonate, the core raw material of lithium batteries, has not stopped the pace of price increases. The latest market price of battery-grade lithium carbonate is still at a high of 550,000 yuan per ton, according to Xinyu lithium battery data. To this end, Ningde Times has stepped up its layout on the resource side, investing in the development of lithium-bearing china clay mines in Yichun, phosphorus resources in Guizhou and Yichang in Hubei, and laterite nickel mines in Indonesia overseas; on the other hand, it has developed recycling technology to increase raw material supply channels.
Recently, the Ningde Times Bangpu Integrated New Energy Industrial Park has also officially started construction. According to company information, the industrial park has a total investment of 32 billion yuan, integrating key links such as “phosphate rock – raw materials – precursors – cathode materials – battery recycling”. Material.
From the perspective of market share, the status of the power battery industry in CATL is still in the forefront. According to data from the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, domestically, CATL’s cumulative installed capacity of power batteries from January to September this year was 92.02GWh, accounting for 47.51% of the market, about 25 percentage points ahead of the second-placed BYD. In the global market, SNE data shows that from January to August this year, the total installed capacity of electric vehicle batteries in the world reached 287.6GWh, and the cumulative installed capacity of CATL reached 102.2GWh, with a global market share of 35.5%.
In addition, the demand growth in the energy storage market is becoming more and more obvious. Recently, CATL has reached a cooperation agreement with FlexGen, a US energy storage technology platform and solution provider, to supply 10GWh of energy storage products for the latter within three years; PV+storage development operator Primergy Solar LLC has reached an agreement to exclusively supply batteries for the Gemini PV+storage project.
Energy storage is also seen by the market as the second growth curve in the CATL era. Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL, has publicly predicted that by 2030, the global market shipment of power batteries will reach 4,800GWh, and the demand for energy storage batteries will exceed 1,000GWh.
However, compared with power batteries, the current gross profit margin of CATL’s energy storage products is lower. According to the semi-annual report, in the first half of the year, the energy storage system of CATL achieved an operating income of 12.736 billion yuan, accounting for about 11% of the total revenue, a year-on-year increase of 171.41%; but the gross profit margin of this part was only 6.43%, a year-on-year decrease of 30.17%; while the power The gross profit margins of batteries and lithium battery materials were 15.04% and 20.65%, respectively, and the declines were smaller, down 7.96% and 0.5% year-on-year, respectively.
It is worth mentioning that, as the lithium battery industry moves towards the TWh era, large-scale production capacity also puts forward requirements for manufacturers’ manufacturing capabilities. Not long ago, Sichuan Times became the second production base of the lighthouse factory in Ningde Times, the first being the Ningde headquarters base. Lighthouse factories value the ability of manufacturing to use digital and intelligent technologies. At present, there are only two lighthouse factories in the global lithium battery industry, both of which are from CATL.
Statement: Securities Times strives for true and accurate information. The content mentioned in the article is for reference only and does not constitute substantive investment advice. Operational risks are based on this.
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