The "rising" sound of lithium copper foil is "imminent" for 6 μ m to become a mainstream giant in the market.

Recently, some media learned from the 16th China International Copper Industry chain Summit that lithium copper foil enterprises are basically in a state of full production, the market is in short supply, enterprise orders are basically full, and the first half of the company's orders are basically full.

In fact, this is no longer a secret, because the supply of PCB falls short of demand, but the production capacity of the upper reaches of the industrial chain is limited, which leads to the price of copper clad laminate, copper foil and other materials continue to rise since the beginning of this year.

Lithium copper foil industry has entered a period of high growth.

Continuing the high growth momentum in the fourth quarter of last year, Lithium Copper foil leader Jiayuan Technology ushered in a "good start" in the first quarter. According to its first-quarter results report, the company achieved operating income of 531 million yuan, an increase of 259.3% over the same period last year; net profit belonging to shareholders of listed companies was 111 million yuan, an increase of 366.44% over the same period last year; and basic earnings per share was 0.48 yuan.

According to the company's previous annual report for 2020, the company achieved operating income of 1.202 billion yuan last year, down 16.86% from the same period last year, while its net profit was about 186 million yuan, down 43.46% from the same period last year. On a quarter-by-quarter basis, revenue in the fourth quarter of 2020 reached 413 million yuan, an increase of 51.52 percent over the same period last year, while the net profit returned to its mother was about 70 million yuan, an increase of 13.78 percent over the same period last year.

Therefore, according to the analysis of some people in the industry, the performance has been growing for two consecutive quarters, and the company's performance has stabilized and improved obviously.

It is worth noting that Jiayuan Technology is not the only single company with outstanding performance, the entire lithium copper foil industry has entered a period of high growth.

According to the information learned from the industry chain, the shortage of lithium copper foil supply mainly comes from two reasons: first, the demand side continues to improve, and downstream lithium battery customer demand increases exponentially, including the rapid growth of power batteries and high-end consumer batteries; second, the production capacity of the supply side is limited, the domestic capacity release rate of lithium copper foil in the past two years can not keep up with the expansion rate of customers.

According to the "White Paper on the Development of China's Copper foil Industry (2021)" issued by the research institute EVTank. White paper statistics show that in 2020, Chinese lithium copper foil shipments reached 146000 tons, an increase of 17.7% over the same period last year, and Chinese lithium copper foil shipments accounted for nearly 35% of all electrolytic copper foil shipments.

It is ranked according to the shipments of major lithium copper foil enterprises in 2020. Longdian Huaxin ranks first with shipments of more than 23000 tons, with a market share of 16.0%. This was followed by listed companies Nord shares and Jiayuan Technology, with a market share of 13.0% and 10.1%, respectively.

Huatai Securities Research News pointed out that since the second half of last year, with the gradual recovery of the downstream new energy industry, the lithium copper foil industry has also picked up rapidly, the market supply exceeds demand, and the head enterprises are full of production and sales. In this context, a number of enterprises in the industry have started the pace of expansion. Due to the concentrated outbreak of demand for various products in 2021, the overall price of copper clad laminate has increased by 35% compared with the previous bottom, and the copper foil processing fee has also increased by about 30% to 40%. The performance of the lithium copper foil industry chain is also expected to usher in a year of growth this year.

6 μ m lithium copper foil may become the mainstream of the market

Copper foil is the core material of negative current collector for lithium ion battery. the production process, cost and final product performance of lithium battery are closely related to the tensile strength, elongation, surface dryness, thickness uniformity and appearance quality of copper foil. Reducing the quality of copper foil on the one hand can effectively reduce the cost of raw materials, on the other hand, the use of lighter copper foil can effectively reduce the quality of single cell, thus improving the energy density of the battery.

Huachuang Securities expects that the global output of lithium batteries will reach nearly 1000GWH in 2025. The rapid growth of lithium battery production will drive the demand for copper foil. It is estimated that the global output of lithium batteries will reach 217000 tons in 2020. High energy density is the development trend of power battery, and reducing the thickness of copper foil can increase the amount of paste coating under the same cell volume, and then increase the overall energy density of the cell. At present, the lithium copper foil is mainly 8 μ m, and the permeability of 6 μ m copper foil is increasing rapidly.

For power batteries, on the one hand, 6 μ m lithium copper foil has higher energy density, better physical properties and more stable chemical properties than 8 μ m; on the other hand, it can better meet the needs of head battery manufacturers to seek differentiation and competitiveness. At present, the production lines of large battery manufacturers such as Ningde era and BYD have been adjusted and matched, and Societe Generale Securities expects that this year, 6 μ m is expected to replace 8 μ m to become the mainstream of the new generation of lithium copper foil.

Guojin Securities believes that the long-term growth logic of the demand for new energy vehicles is solid. Once the epidemic is over, it is expected that there will be a certain gap in the production capacity of high-end lithium copper foil. 6 μ m lithium copper foil is expected to replicate the situation of simultaneous rise in volume and price in 2016 and once again release the flexibility of enterprise performance. In the long run, as the core component of new energy vehicle power battery, the supply and demand pattern of high-end lithium copper foil is good, especially 6 μ m copper foil enterprises have good medium-and long-term configuration value.