The "fixed-point" competition of international customers has achieved remarkable results.
According to the report released by South Korea's SNE Research on May 7th, in the first quarter of this year, the installed capacity of LG Chem's power battery reached 5.5 GWh, a year-on-year increase of 120%, surpassing Panasonic and Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. to become the largest battery manufacturer in the world. Its global market share has also expanded from 10.7% in the first quarter of last year to 27. 1% in the first quarter of this year. Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. ranked third with a market share of 65,438+07.4%, down 6 percentage points from 23.4% in the same period last year. Panasonic, ranked second, has a market share of 25.7%.
SNE research believes that the sales of Tesla Model 3, Renault Zoe and Volkswagen electric vehicles have promoted the strong growth of the installed capacity of LG chemical batteries.
Regarding the competitive pressure brought by Japanese and Korean power battery manufacturers such as LG Chem and Panasonic, Zeng Yuqun said that in the international market, for the automobile industry, it generally takes 36-48 months from jointly developing samples of A, B and C products with customers to mass production, while customers generally start to specify products in the second sample stage, and the competition for designated projects has ended. Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. has made remarkable achievements in the competition with Panasonic, Samsung and LG Chemical in the international market.
Zeng Yuqun said that customers will only accept products that are more cost-effective and competitive, and can make their products reflect value in the market. No enterprise can easily bind customers, and our long-term product competitiveness and production capacity layout are confident to cope with global competition.
Is CTP battery of contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. better than BYD blade battery?
At today's performance briefing, some investors asked, "BYD said that its blade battery is very powerful and invincible in the world. Did you crush the battery of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd.? " ? Zeng Yuqun replied, "Blade battery is one of the innovative concepts of CTP structure that we mass-produced in 20 16. We selected and mass-produced the best CTP structure innovation, such as CTP-0, CTP- 1, CTP-2 ",which means its CTP battery is better than BYD's blade battery.
Li Jiang, deputy general manager and secretary of the board of directors of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. added that CTP batteries (including LFP and ternary material system) of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. have been applied to many products in commercial vehicles and passenger cars, and have been recognized by customers.
Regarding safety, Zeng Yuqun said that "battery safety and battery abuse test are two different things, but some people equate the passing of abuse test with battery safety ... Our safety measures such as design, production and testing should focus on the whole scene, full cycle, all-round and all-round system safety in the market, such as car collision/charging/water ingress/condensation, battery pack/battery cell design and manufacturing."
By abuse test, he seems to refer to the battery acupuncture experiment that BYD showed when it released its blade battery. At that time, a video released by BYD showed that the blade battery did not catch fire in the acupuncture test. When the battery core is pierced by steel needle, the surface temperature of the battery core is only over 30 degrees, which is much better than ternary lithium battery and ordinary lithium iron phosphate battery, indicating that the blade battery has very good safety performance.
Pan Jian, vice chairman of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd., said that both ternary and lithium iron phosphate batteries have products that can pass the acupuncture test (not only lithium iron phosphate batteries can pass the acupuncture test). Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. has products with different characteristics to meet customers' different needs and application scenarios. The company has leading safety features at battery level, module level and system level.
Tesla's self-produced battery has no influence on Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd..
Regarding the impact that Tesla's self-produced battery may have on Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd., Zeng Yuqun said, "Musk told me that Tesla wants to make his own battery. As far as I know, their technical route will not affect us, and we are discussing how to make the battery better. " He also said that Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. has its own "cobalt-free" battery technology reserve. At present, research and development are progressing smoothly, and efforts are being made to do a good job in the supply chain, because this is a brand-new and subversive product.
According to the previous agreement between Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. and Tesla, Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. will supply Tesla in the second half of this year, and it is not limited to lithium ferrous phosphate or ternary. The specific products supplied depend on the market demand. Moreover, the supply agreement between the two parties includes not only Tesla's Shanghai factory, but also other overseas factories of Tesla.
Have confidence in maintaining high gross profit margin.
The gross profit margin of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. has been declining in the past few years. The gross profit margin of power battery system business has dropped from 44.84% in 20 16 to 28.45% in 20 19. Some investors have asked whether its gross profit margin will continue to decline in the next few years with the increasingly fierce market competition.
In this regard, Zheng Shu, financial director of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. said that with the decline of new energy subsidy policy and technological progress, the price of lithium batteries will decline, but the decline will gradually slow down. The company mainly improves product performance and energy density, optimizes product design, improves production technology, improves product yield, realizes more efficient automatic production, reaches in-depth cooperation with industrial chain, and reduces production cost and raw material cost. Although the price of the company's products continues to decline, it still maintains a high gross profit margin.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.