At the background of the fast development of electric vehicles, electric light vehicles, power tools, consumer electronics and new energy storage industries, lithium batteries and the comprehensive advantages of the downstream areas of the battery capacity, high power, service life and environmental protection of the increasing demand for a wide range of market application prospects.

Power lithium battery is currently the most important application market of lithium batteries, mainly used in new energy vehicles, electric light vehicles and power tools. On the policy side, under the macro background of addressing climate change and promoting green life, new energy vehicles have become a recognized mainstream development direction by virtue of their obvious advantages in energy efficiency, environmental protection and intelligence. In October 2020, China issued the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)", strongly supporting the development of the new energy vehicle industry, and putting forward the grand vision that by 2025, the sales volume of new vehicles of new energy vehicles in China will reach 20% of the total sales volume of new vehicles in the automobile industry, and that by 2035, pure new energy vehicles will become the mainstream of the newly sold vehicles, and that the public sector will realize the full electrification of vehicles.

On the technology side, after years of policy encouragement and enterprise R&D innovation, the technology level of domestic power battery enterprises has been continuously enhanced, laying a foundation for the long-term development of China's lithium battery market for new energy vehicles. In terms of international competitiveness, CATL, BYD and other well-known enterprises have the world's leading market share, and are on par with Japan and South Korea; in terms of continuous innovation, domestic lithium enterprises have successively launched new technologies such as CTP, blade battery, JTM and other new technologies, and the technological level is constantly improving.

On the market side, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in 2022 will be 6,886,600 units, an increase of 95.61% year-on-year, and the annual penetration rate will increase from 13.4% in 2021 to 25.6%.

Consumer lithium batteries will grow steadily

Consumer electronics products mainly include smartphones, laptops, tablet PCs and smart hardware. Subject to the rapid development of integrated circuits, Internet of Things technology, consumer electronics products are becoming increasingly powerful, application scenarios continue to broaden, and gradually become indispensable to people's daily life, office, entertainment necessities.

According to IDC data, from 2009 to 2019, the global market size of the consumer electronics industry rapidly increased from $245 billion to $715 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 11.3%. Influenced by the wave of 5G smartphone replacement, the normalization of laptop online learning and telecommuting demand, and the continuous launch of emerging smart hardware devices, the consumer electronics market is expected to maintain steady growth in the future, and the market size will reach $939 billion in 2025.

Energy storage lithium battery market has great potential for development

The development potential of the lithium battery storage industry is huge, but due to technology, policy, cost and other reasons, China's lithium battery storage market started relatively late. At present, China's lithium batteries for energy storage are mainly used in communication base stations, user-side peak shaving, off-grid power stations, micro-grids, rail transportation, etc., and some of them are also exported to Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States, Australia and other markets.

4, the competitive landscape of the lithium battery industry

• Cylindrical lithium battery manufacturers overall industry competitive landscape

According to the industry white paper released by an organization, the global cylindrical lithium battery industry concentration is relatively high, the top 9 cylindrical lithium battery manufacturers accounted for about two-thirds of the market share, the top manufacturers in order of Panasonic Group, LG Chemistry, Samsung SDI, BAK Batteries, Lishen Batteries, etc.

② Competitive landscape of lithium battery manufacturers in various application segments

From the regional distribution point of view, after years of policy encouragement, China's rapid development of the lithium battery industry, Panasonic, LG Chem, Samsung SDI and other major foreign manufacturers of lithium batteries have production bases in China, China has become one of the world's most important lithium battery origin.

From the perspective of market segments, power lithium batteries, consumer lithium batteries, lithium batteries for energy storage, there are differences between the leading companies in each application, but the overall pattern of oligopoly is almost always present. The competition pattern of each segment is as follows:

Competitive pattern of power lithium battery

a. Automotive power battery field

In the field of automobile power lithium battery, domestic enterprises are in a relative leading position in the field of automobile power lithium battery, and the oligopoly pattern of the head enterprises in China, Japan and South Korea is basically formed. According to statistics, in 2021, the Chinese company CATL, Korean company LG Chem, Japanese company Panasonic, Chinese company BYD and Korean company SKI will occupy the top five positions in the installed power battery volume, and the combined market share of the top five companies will be about 80%, which has already formed a relatively stable oligopoly pattern.

b. Electric light-duty vehicle lithium power battery field

As for lithium batteries for electric light vehicles (mainly electric two-wheelers), there’s data shows that the output of lithium two-wheelers in 2021 was 13.17 million, with an overall penetration rate of 24.2%, driving the shipment of lithium-ion batteries for electric two-wheelers to 13.1GWh, combined share of the four enterprises exceeding 70%. In addition, the competitive manufacturers in this industry include CATL, Far East Corporation, DMEGC, BAK Battery, and so on.

c. Power lithium battery for electric tools

In terms of lithium batteries for power tools, there’s data shows that the global power tool shipments and market size in 2022 was 510 million units and $57.19 billion, respectively, and it is expected that the global power tool shipments in 2026 will be more than 700 million units, and the market size will be more than $80 billion. Driven by the growth of the global power tools market, it is expected that the global demand for lithium batteries for power tools in 2026 will exceed 4 billion.

From the point of view of the competition pattern, international lithium battery manufacturers started earlier, occupying a larger market space: in 2017, Samsung SDI, LG Chemistry, Murata in the field of power tool batteries accounted for about 75% of the market share. Since 2018, in the context of the domestic high rate of lithium battery technology level breakthroughs, the international lithium battery manufacturers focus on the layout of the field of automotive power batteries, EVE lithium energy , BAK Battery, Lishen and many other domestic lithium battery suppliers have respectively passed the certification of one or more well-known power tool manufacturers such as TTI, Bosch, Stanley Best, Positec, etc., and have entered the supply chain of international power tool manufacturers, gradually replacing the share of foreign battery manufacturers. According to the public data, in 2021, the full lithium two-wheeled vehicle penetration rate, "new national standards", well-known enterprises to enter the game will become the acceleration of lithium batteries to replace lead-acid batteries in the long term boost.

5, The characteristics of the lithium industry

• Lithium battery safety issues need to be resolved urgently

In the context of new energy vehicles on the traditional fuel vehicle replacement trend is basically determined, lithium batteries with high energy density, high discharge power, long cycle life and other advantages, is currently the main power battery used in electric vehicles. However, in recent years, safety accidents caused by thermal runaway of Li-ion batteries have occurred occasionally, posing a threat to the safety of consumers' lives and properties. BAK New Power focuses on the safety of lithium batteries and conducts in-depth R&D and design to ensure safe and worry-free batteries.

With the implementation of mandatory standards, the lithium battery safety threshold is significantly higher, the degree of security of the battery will be more and more by manufacturers, end users and government regulators, and lithium battery companies will be how to minimize the safety of lithium batteries, lithium batteries and related industries are facing the challenge.

② lithium battery multiple technology routes coexist

In recent years, the rapid development of commercial applications of lithium batteries, in response to new energy vehicles and other end-use market requirements for lithium batteries continue to improve, lithium battery emerging technologies continue to emerge, showing a variety of technical routes coexisting situation. At present, the differences in the technical routes of lithium batteries are mainly manifested in the cathode material system and encapsulation form, etc. The first is the cathode material system of lithium batteries.

First, there are differences in the cathode material technology route of lithium battery. Anode material is an important part of lithium battery, and its characteristics have an important impact on the battery's energy density, cycle life, safety performance, etc. The technical routes mainly include ternary materials, lithium manganate, lithium iron phosphate, lithium cobalt, etc. The battery precision structural parts and materials have an important impact on the battery's energy density, cycle life and safety performance. Battery precision structural parts and materials can be widely used as encapsulation or conductive materials for lithium batteries by virtue of their strong versatility, and are generally not affected by the technological route of cathode materials.

Second, there are differences in the form of lithium battery packaging. Encapsulation form refers to the encapsulation structure of a single lithium battery, different encapsulation form should be different processes, but also corresponds to a different form of battery precision structural components. At present, the lithium battery packaging form technology route mainly includes cylindrical, square, soft pack three forms. At present, the characteristics of cylindrical, square and soft pack three types of lithium batteries have their own advantages and disadvantages, in the global market was "three under the sun" competition pattern, all have a large market development space.

In September 2020, Tesla launched the 46800 large cylindrical battery program. Compared with the traditional small cylindrical battery, large cylindrical battery technology can reduce the number of batteries in the battery pack and the corresponding number of structural components, improve energy density, simplify the battery management system requirements are higher than the disadvantages of square batteries.

In terms of current progress, Tesla has realized the mass production of 4680 large cylindrical batteries in 2022, with weekly production capacity reaching 868,000, corresponding to the demand of about 1,000 Model Y. In September 2022, BMW Group announced that it will use 46 series cylindrical battery cells in its new models from 2025 onwards, and locked its first batch of partners with NDT and YWL. Other well-known battery manufacturers around the world are also steadily advancing the layout of 4680 large cylindrical batteries.