On April 28th, Ningde Times announced that it would invest another 14 billion yuan to set up two joint ventures with ATL after throwing out a huge industrial chain investment plan of 19 billion yuan. It is reported that the two companies are the battery joint venture company with an investment of 12 billion yuan and the battery package joint venture company with an investment of 2 billion yuan respectively. It will be engaged in the research and development, production, sales and after-sales service of medium-sized batteries used in household energy storage, electric two-wheelers and other fields.
According to public data, ATL is mainly engaged in research and development, manufacturing, trade and investment related to lithium electronic batteries, and its controlling shareholder is Tokyo Electrochemical Industry Co., Ltd.
With regard to the decision on this investment, Ningde Times said that as a leading power battery manufacturer in the world, under the background of the expanding application space of lithium-ion batteries in household energy storage systems, electric two-wheelers and other fields, cooperation with ATL through a joint venture can expand the company's opportunities in new business areas.
Not only that, Ningde Times also issued a notice on the same day that in order to continue and strengthen cooperation between the two sides in the field of lithium-ion batteries, the company and ATL signed a "cross-technology license agreement" on April 28th to carry out cross-technology licenses for their respective development or acquisition of lithium-ion battery-related technologies.
It is worth mentioning that the 2020 financial results released by the Ningde era showed that the lithium battery material business in the Ningde era declined significantly in 2020 compared with previous years. In 2020, the revenue of lithium battery materials in Ningde era totaled 3.429 billion yuan, down 20.35% from the same period last year. Although this situation may be related to the weak performance of lithium prices in the first half of 2020, in view of the vigorous development of the lithium battery industry, it is urgent for Ningde era to increase the company's influence in the lithium battery field as soon as possible.
However, according to SMM research, under the influence of the recent decline in consumer demand in India and Southeast Asian markets due to the runaway novel coronavirus epidemic and the shortage of raw materials such as chips in some downstream products, the demand differentiation in the battery market continued this week, and the demand for small power remained stable and remained high. The market for digital consumer batteries is relatively light. Battery orders for many products such as portable battery and e-cigarettes are obviously weaker than before, along with a decline in demand for ternary, lithium cobalt and lithium manganate materials in this field. In terms of power, iron and lithium continue to increase, and there is little change in the overall demand for lithium carbonate, so the price of battery-grade and industrial-grade lithium carbonate fell slightly this week. "View details
According to the spot price of SMM, as of April 28, the average price of battery-grade lithium carbonate was 89000 yuan / ton, the same as yesterday.

"Click to see more spot prices of SMM metals.

![[Batería de estado sólido: producción de electrolito de sulfuro 70 t, enero-agosto]](https://imgqn.smm.cn/usercenter/Bwmed20251217171726.jpg)
![[Análisis de SMM] Europa busca la independencia de su cadena de suministro de litio, pero sus proyectos atraen a inversores asiáticos](https://imgqn.smm.cn/usercenter/nVnLo20251217171728.jpg)

