Cost Rise Fails to Provide Support, Weak Demand Leads to Decline in Both Volume and Price of LiPF6 in January

In January 2026, the LiPF6 market exhibited a simultaneous decline in both production and prices, primarily influenced by multiple factors including weakening end-use demand, subdued purchasing willingness downstream, and a loosened supply-demand pattern.

On the production side, LiPF6 production saw a MoM pullback, mainly due to persistent weakness in demand. End-use demand wise, as the NEV purchase tax policy shifted from full exemption to a 50% reduction effective January 1, 2026, domestic auto sales remained high in December 2025, which pulled forward part of the January market demand, resulting in sluggish NEV sales in January and subsequently driving a contraction in demand within the power battery sector. Although the ESS sector performed strongly, with robust orders and some newly commissioned capacities gradually entering the ramp-up stage, leading to a slight increase in ESS battery cell production, the drag from the decline in power battery demand was more significant, ultimately resulting in an overall weak demand trend for LiPF6. Meanwhile, affected by the continuous decline in LiPF6 prices, downstream electrolyte enterprises preferred to utilize existing raw material inventories for production, leading to reduced external purchase demand and low purchasing willingness, further suppressing market demand for LiPF6. Against this backdrop, LiPF6 enterprises, impacted by both declining demand and falling prices, proactively chose to cut production to address the pressure from the supply-demand imbalance.

Price wise, LiPF6 prices continued their downward trend in January, diverging somewhat from the movement of raw material costs. Although the price of its key raw material, lithium carbonate, showed an upward fluctuation, directly pushing up the overall production cost of LiPF6, current market prices for LiPF6 remained above the cost line by a certain margin, leaving enterprises with some profit space. Consequently, prices struggled to rise in tandem with costs. More critically, weakening demand led to a looser supply-demand pattern, coupled with some traders actively reducing prices to accelerate capital turnover, which further intensified downward pressure on prices. Ultimately, this resulted in LiPF6 prices maintaining a downward trend in January despite rising costs.

SMM New Energy Research Team

Cong Wang 021-51666838

Rui Ma 021-51595780

Disheng Feng 021-51666714

Yanlin Lü 021-20707875

Zhicheng Zhou 021-51666711

Mengqi Xu 021-20707868

Xuejie Hu 021-20707858

Bolin Chen 021-51666836

Yizhou Wang 021-51595909