Diaphragm used to be lithium battery among the main materials, one of the products with the highest gross profit rate, the head enterprises in the diaphragm industry maintained an ultra-high gross profit rate of 40%-50% all the year round before 2023. However, with the fierce reshuffle of the industry and the intensification of the contradiction between supply and demand of the industry, the gross profit rate in the diaphragm field has been much lower than before.

For example, the gross profit margin of leading boss Enjie shares was as high as 50.02% in the first half of 2022, but fell to 37.43% in 2023. In the first quarter of this year, it further dropped sharply to 18.87. The gross profit margin of another dragon head star source material was in 2023, and it fell further to in the first quarter of this year.

At present, China's lithium battery diaphragm market competition enters the White daily chemical industry. Insiders pointed out, "with the centralized release of large-scale production capacity of domestic lithium battery diaphragm enterprises, the phased supply exceeds demand, and the cost competition and price competition are fierce." At present, the annual output of domestic lithium battery diaphragm can reach 28.2 billion square meters, but the capacity utilization rate is less than 50%.

Judging from the operating performance, the net profit of engjie shares in 2023 was 2.527 billion yuan, down 36.84 percent year-on-year; The net profit in the first half of 2024 was 0.291 billion yuan, down 79.28 percent year-on-year. The net profit of Xingyuan material in 2023 was 0.576 billion yuan, down% year-on-year; The net profit in the first quarter of 2024 was 0.107 billion yuan, down% year-on-year. Sinoma technology's net profit in 2023 was 2.224 billion yuan, down 37.77 percent year-on-year; Its net profit in the first half of 2024 was 0.465 billion yuan, down 66.6 percent year-on-year.

Under the fierce involution situation in the domestic market, overseas markets are increasingly becoming a new direction for diaphragm enterprises to expand their market business and improve their business performance. Insiders pointed out that overseas construction of diaphragm enterprises can not only approach downstream battery end users, but also effectively avoid trade barriers and expand a larger market share, thus consolidating the overall competitiveness of enterprises.

have stepped up the layout of overseas

in order to meet the needs of customers in overseas regions for the stability and timeliness of wet isolating membrane products supply, strengthen the company's overseas market development and realize the global layout. On June this year, engjie announced that it plans to invest in the construction of the second phase of wet lithium battery isolating membrane factory in debresson, Hungary. The total investment of the project is estimated to be about 0.447 billion euros (about 3.5 billion yuan) and the planned annual production capacity is about 0.8 billion square meters.

It is understood that the first phase of its Debrecen project has been invested and produced in July 2023. it is the first overseas lithium battery diaphragm production base of Enjie, with a total capacity of over 0.4 billion square meters. In August 2023, engjie signed an agreement with a large lithium battery manufacturer in the world, stipulating that no less than 0.96 billion square meters of diaphragm will be supplied to it from 2025 to 2033. Engjie shares revealed that its Hungarian base will realize mass production and supply to this customer in the third quarter of this year.

Engjie shares Hungary base not only supplies this customer. Earlier, engjie had reached strategic cooperation with ACC of France in 2022, and agreed that its Hungarian factory would supply about 0.655 billion euros (about 5.2 billion yuan) to ACC between 2024 and 2030. Lithium battery diaphragm products.

"With the increase of (our) Hungarian factory output, the overseas market share will also gradually increase. (Our) Hungarian factories mainly supply to local customers such as Europe and the United States." Engjie shares revealed that the base will also supply and provide services to Chinese battery enterprises overseas in the future.

In addition to the European base, engjie shares also lay out production capacity in North America. In January this year, engjie adjusted its investment in the US lithium battery diaphragm project to US $0.276 billion (about 2 billion yuan), with a planned total capacity of 0.7 billion square meters. Engjie shares said that the company's American factory is under construction, and it is expected to send samples to the local battery factory in the fourth quarter of 2024, with mass production in 2025.

In addition to the layout of the European market, Xingyuan material announced in last August that the total investment is not more than 5 billion yuan, and the production base is invested in Malaysia. It is expected that an annual output of 2 billion square meters of wet diaphragm and supporting coated diaphragm capacity will be formed after the production. In November of the same year, the foundation stone laying ceremony was held at the Malaysia factory of Xingyuan material. After the factory was completed, it would become the first lithium battery diaphragm factory in ASEAN at that time.

Currently, overseas customers of Xingyuan materials mainly include LG new energy, Samsung SDI, NorthVolt, etc. On April this year, Xingyuan material announced that the company signed a strategic memorandum with Samsung SDI, agreeing that the company would supply about 2.22 billion square meters of wet coated diaphragm materials to Samsung SDI to deepen the strategic cooperation of diaphragm related business of power batteries.

02

higher gross margin than domestic

compared with China, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in overseas markets represented by Europe, America and Southeast Asia is still relatively low, and the demand for power batteries is very strong. According to industry estimates, the total demand for power and energy storage batteries in the European market will reach 1500GWh by 2030. The U.S. Department of Energy predicts that its domestic demand for lithium batteries will increase 5-10 times by 2030.

Up to now, Chinese battery manufacturers, including Ningde era, Yiwei Lithium Energy, honeycomb energy, voseng technology, Guoxuan Gaoke, Vision power, and Sunwoda, have all deployed factories overseas, and their capacity planning has exceeded 500GWh. Meanwhile, LG new energy, Samsung SDI, Panasonic, SK on and other Japanese and Korean battery manufacturers are also expanding their overseas production capacity one after another.

The overseas diaphragm market not only has a large demand, but also has a better gross margin than the domestic market. For example, the 2023 annual report of engjie shares showed that the gross profit margin in the overseas market was 41.37%, which was significantly higher than the gross profit margin of 37.43% in its domestic market. In 2023, the overseas operating income of Enjie shares accounted for about 17%. The company said that in the future, it will continue to dig deep into existing overseas customers and expand new customers to continuously increase the proportion of its overseas customers.

The gross profit margin of Xingyuan material in 2023 was, which was higher than that of the overseas market of engjie shares. This may be the reason why the overseas shipment of Xingyuan materials is relatively high. Statistics from industry institutions that can be used as reference show that in the first half of 2023, the overseas shipment of Xingyuan materials (including overseas customers and domestic factories) accounted for more than 40%, and the overseas export volume accounted for the highest proportion in the industry.

It is worth noting that compared with material enterprises such as positive pole and negative pole, the number of Chinese diaphragm enterprises currently building factories in overseas markets is relatively small. Data show that in 2023, global diaphragm shipments exceeded 21 billion square meters, and Chinese diaphragm enterprises accounted for more than 83 percent. Currently, they mainly supply domestic capacity. In the future, with the acceleration of Chinese enterprises going to sea, overseas production capacity will also increase rapidly, realizing more global production.