The midfield battle of contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd.

In just 9 years, Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. has become an entity production enterprise with annual revenue exceeding 45 billion yuan and market value exceeding 300 billion yuan. Even on a global scale, its growth process is unique.

In fact, since 20 16, the share of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. in China power battery market has remained above 50% for a long time. At the same time, thanks to the huge scale of China market, Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. has occupied the first place in global power battery sales for three consecutive years.

Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd., 9 years old, mature and powerful, just like a middle-aged man, is about to meet new crises and challenges.

The "Middle Age Crisis" of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd.

In the first quarter of 2020, affected by the domestic epidemic, the installed capacity of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. in the first quarter was only 2.806GWh, down 48.6% year-on-year. At the same time, competitors LG Chem and Panasonic successfully counterattacked, winning the first and second place with installed capacity of 5.5GWh and 5.2GWh respectively, and Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. fell to the first place for the first time.

On the surface, the epidemic situation is the reason why Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. fell to the third place. After all, the first quarter was the worst epidemic in China, and the production and sales data of new energy vehicles of Guangzhou Automobile, SAIC, Weilai, Weimar and Tucki, the main partners of Contemporary Amp Technology Co., Ltd., were terrible.

But at a deeper level, it also exposes the problems of contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd.-excessive dependence on the domestic market and insufficient international market layout.

The strong growth of LG Chem in the first quarter was mainly due to the sales performance of Tesla Model 3, Renault Zoe EV, Hyundai KONA and Audi e-tron. Panasonic's installed capacity mainly depends on Tesla models.

In particular, Tesla Model 3 sold 89,923 vehicles worldwide in the first quarter, while China, the first pure electric vehicle, sold only 89,000 vehicles in the first quarter (including 1.3 1.600 vehicles contributed by Model 3). According to the average power consumption of 55kWh per vehicle, Model 3 alone contributed about 4.95GWh of installed capacity to Panasonic and LG Chem.

Because the battery cost of electric vehicles is very high, in order to obtain stable battery supply and low battery price, car companies generally choose to cooperate with battery suppliers or build capacity in the form of deep bundling.

At present, Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. has established good cooperative relations with automobile manufacturers, and has cooperated with international automobile companies such as Guangzhou Automobile, Geely, Weilai, Weimar, Li, BMW, Toyota, Daimler and Hyundai, but the supply is limited to the China market.

At present, the power battery capacity of contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. is 53GWh, and the capacity under construction is 22.2GWh. The progress of the "German era" factory started on 20 19 is somewhat delayed due to the epidemic situation. It is estimated that 202 1 will be put into production, with the maximum production capacity of 14GWh. The planned main supplier is BMW iNEXT listed on 202 1.

How to catch up with "Super King"?

Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. needs to open the international market, but it also lacks a "super king" like Tesla.

In view of the fact that contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. Q 1 was overtaken by competitors, Zeng Yuqun mentioned at the recent 20 19 performance briefing that "customers will only accept products with higher cost performance and competitiveness, which can make their products reflect value in the market, and no enterprise can easily bind customers".

According to the previously disclosed cooperation plan, Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. will start supplying Tesla in the second half of this year. However, the cooperation is likely to provide lithium iron phosphate batteries for some domestic Model 3 standard endurance versions.

This information cannot completely dispel our concerns about Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd.. The first reason is the competitiveness of current flagship products.

The monomer energy density of NCM 8 1 1 battery of Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. is still lower than that of LG Chem and Panasonic 2 1700 battery. On the supply price, Panasonic provided Tesla with a price that contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. NCM8 1 1 battery can't provide at present.

It is urgent to obtain more favorable brands, enhance product strength and reduce costs in international competition. At the same time, the research and development of forward-looking technologies such as cobalt-free batteries and solid-state lithium batteries must also compete with competitors, which may be the real "middle-aged crisis" of contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd.

The war will be more intense in the second half of the year.

With the cancellation of the white list of 20 19 domestic batteries, foreign battery suppliers such as LG Chem and Panasonic have lost the biggest barrier to enter China. In the second half of the war, Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. was faced with not only breaking through the international market, but also how to protect the existing domestic market.

At present, the production capacity of contemporary Amperex Technology Co, Limited, LG Chem and Panasonic is almost the same, maintaining at about 50GWh, and the production capacity of the three manufacturers will increase to nearly 100GWh, which will obviously exceed the sales growth rate of new energy vehicles, which means that the competition for new energy power battery suppliers will be particularly fierce in the future.

In front of contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd., it is bound to be a road that is forced to increase R&D investment while reducing gross profit. Although painful, only in this way can the country lay the foundation in the first half.

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.