602030 lipo battery.How do Japanese and Korean lithium battery giants "balance" their digital and power battery businesses?

　　What I want to talk about today is a topic. When SK invests so much determination, we can see several problems:

　　Why are the original giants in the field of small batteries constrained in doing things? This specifically refers to the current state of SDI.

　　In the future market, whether large and small batteries (we classify 1Ah, 10Ah, 50Ah and even larger 100Ah to clearly distinguish the demand in different markets) will depend on the four main materials, scale effect, and It is expected that the market will cause one thing to ebb and flow and the other to ebb and flow.

　　1) Consumer market

　　Small-capacity lithium batteries mainly refer to cells used in digital consumer products, and some are cylindrical batteries used in electric vehicles. As shown below, due to Tesla's huge contribution, nearly 5 billion cells have been made worldwide.

　　Note: According to an estimate of 4,416 units, 145,000 Model 3s require 644 million 21700 batteries. Based on 7,500 units, 99,000 Model S/X units require 745 million 18650 batteries. We can see that Panasonic is working hard to apply cylindrical batteries to electric vehicles. When it comes to automobiles, other markets have also been abandoned. Samsung SDI has made a lot of money in this field at very competitive prices in power tools and industrial needs.

　　Inside Samsung's Q1 2019 Earnings Call

　　small-sized battery division. In Q1, small-sized battery revenue was similar to the previous quarter.

　　►cylindrical battery sales increased, thanks to strong non-IT demand such as power tools, e-bikes and cleaners

　　►polymer battery sales also grew QoQ with the launch of new flagship products

　　►prismatic battery sales decreased due to weaker upstream demand

　　At present, looking at the lithium electrification of various types of electronic equipment, as well as China's electric bicycles, the demand for small lithium batteries is continuing. SDI is currently thinking about the problem mainly in terms of dispersed demand and maintaining profit margins. In terms of production capacity, it is moving towards cylindrical The tilt is quite severe.

　　This involves the strategic choices of several major battery companies:

　　►When BYD chooses between large and small batteries, it undoubtedly bets on LFP’s large power cells, which has led to the current situation.

　　►ATL, by separating from CATL, divides the focus into two operations

　　►Panasonic: Mainly using similar production lines to build the cylindrical cell requirements for power batteries around Tesla. However, due to insufficient demand for square case cells, it is currently constructing a supply system around Toyota.

　　►LG: LG actually has soft bags and cylinders. In this round of capital investment, it has to invest more resources in power than SDI. Of course, the results are better; but what we are facing is that in large-scale soft bags There are only two outlets for battery packs: electric vehicles and energy storage.

　　►There are several other domestic models such as BAK and Lishen. I won’t go into details here. They make a lot of small batteries, which also hinders the practice of power batteries.

　　Note: Small lithium batteries are used in 3C. Avicenine’s prediction is 4.5 billion units, which is less than the actual data in 2018. Therefore, it is estimated that the actual number may exceed 6 billion units. However, with the peak of mobile phones, this data will not be able to go up. go.

　　As we talked about yesterday, SK Innovation has ramped up production capacity so quickly. Where will these large-capacity batteries go in the future?

　　AVICENNE analyzes the incremental demand for global power batteries, mainly for passenger cars and commercial vehicles from China. Compared with this, the demand for power batteries in other regions of the world is about 1/3, while industrial applications (various tools + ESS ) all added together are comparable to consumer products.

　　Summary: What I have now is an idea. Whether we will continue to push the BEV strategy based on energy security considerations. This will be the only digestion point for the expansion of power battery production. Whether the entire development is ready depends on the power battery. for the price and safety. As for the battery companies themselves to hedge this risk, it is a better way to use part of the large batteries for energy storage. In the field of increasing demand such as electric bicycles, small soft bags and cylinders can be produced at a very low price.

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