The survey data shows that the size of China's lithium battery ternary cathode material market reached 26.3 billion yuan in 2018, an increase of 52.9% year-on-year; the shipment volume was 136,800 tons, an increase of 57% year-on-year.
The main reasons for the continuous and substantial growth of ternary material shipments and market size in 2018 are:
(1) In 2018, China's new energy passenger car output was 1.0075 million, a year-on-year increase of 82.65%. Passenger cars drove 33.09GWh of new power battery installed capacity. Among them, the application of ternary batteries in passenger cars accounted for 83%, an increase of 7 percentage points from 2017, which directly increased the demand for ternary cathode materials;
(2) Due to the high cost of cobalt resources and unstable supply, and the price of cobalt has been high in the first half of 2017-2018, the cost of lithium cobaltate batteries has increased by more than 30%. In order to reduce costs, some digital battery companies In the field, increase the ternary material to replace lithium cobaltate, or use ternary cobalt doping to reduce the amount of cobalt;
(3) Affected by the new national standard and the price increase of lead-acid batteries, electric two-wheelers have increased the proportion of applications using ternary lithium batteries;
(4) The price of ternary materials maintained at a high level in 2018, which increased by 15% to 20% compared with the same period in 2017, and it will only decline significantly in the fourth quarter of 2018.
From the perspective of the ternary material breakdown model, NCM523 is still the mainstream in the market in 2018, accounting for 64.8%; NCM523 has the largest proportion, mainly because the main square power batteries and soft-pack batteries in China mainly use NCM523, of which digital batteries are mainly used Ni55 series, while the square uses single crystal 523 (Ni50 and Ni55), the soft pack power battery mainly uses the secondary ball 523 of Ni50.
The proportion of high nickel market increased to 7.7% in 2018, an increase of 4.4 percentage points from 2017. In 2018, domestic high nickel (NMC811, NCA) ternary batteries began to be used on a large scale. Ningbo Rongbai, Hunan Shanshan, Dangsheng Technology, Xiamen Tungsten and other cathode material companies have put into operation high-nickel ternary production lines and achieved batch production. Supply to lithium battery companies.
The main reasons for the increase in the proportion of high nickel are:
(1) Affected by policies and long-term mileage requirements of new terminals, new energy vehicle power batteries continue to increase battery energy density requirements. Domestic companies have increased their investment in high-energy density battery technology, and the proportion of ternary batteries for passenger cars has increased. Accelerate the application of high nickel materials;
(2) Cylindrical battery companies represented by Lishen, BAK, Penghui, etc. have successively launched high-nickel 811 and NCA battery products, and have taken the lead in the digital and cylindrical power applications, which has increased the demand for high-nickel ternary materials;
(3) Lithium batteries have been increasingly demanded to reduce costs and reduce cobalt, prompting the development of ternary cathode materials toward high nickel and low cobalt (Ni83, Ni85, Ni88, etc.).
At present, China's ternary precursor production capacity is compared with that of ternary materials. The precursor production capacity is tight, and domestic precursor enterprises have also started to expand production. With the release of new capacity, the current market competition pattern is likely to be broken, and competition will become more intense in the future.
In 2018, high-nickel ternary and upstream core raw materials became the focus of the company's layout. In the process, the major new ternary cathode materials companies added new capacity mainly to high-nickel ternary (or high-nickel production lines taking into account NCM622 and NCM523). The production capacity will be put into production one after another, and competition in the industry will become more intense.