"Bullish" Lithium Stocks Reported: The Average Growth Rate Of Lithium Salt Products Revenue Reached 263%, Which Has Not Entered The Stage Of Large-Scale Profit Release

The inflection point of the cycle industry depends on the change of the supply-demand relationship. This year's lithium and lithium salt industries are just like this. Under the background of the rapid increase of new energy vehicle penetration and large demand, the upstream supply elasticity is very limited.

The imbalance of supply and demand has directly led to the price rise of spodumene, lithium carbonate and other lithium salts, which has led to the rapid recovery of the industry chain.

On the evening of August 30, Ganfeng lithium industry, the second largest lithium salt producer in the world, released a semi annual report. The company's net profit increased by 805.29% on the basis of revenue growth of 70.27%. The core driving force lies in the release of 50000 tons of lithium hydroxide capacity in the first quarter of the company, and the increase of lithium salt in the current period on both sides of the company's revenue and profit.

In addition, according to the statistics of 21st century economic report, all the 11 lithium stocks that disclosed the operating data of different products in the semi annual report showed a significant increase in lithium salt income in the first half of the year, with an average growth rate of 443.8%. If the Tibet mining industry with excessive growth rate and Tianhua ultra clean company lack of comparable data are excluded, the average growth rate can also reach 262.5%.

Taking into account the support of the rising spodumene on the cost of lithium salt and the price performance of lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide in July and August, the above growth trend will continue in the third quarter. It is expected that the profit of each listed company will further increase compared with the second quarter.

Lithium salt revenue is large, profit recovery just started

A total of 13 stocks are included in the wind lithium plate. In addition, chuanneng power, which owns the mining right of Lijiagou spodumene mine, has 14 Listed Companies in total.

Among them, most companies disclosed the business data of different industries and products in the semi annual report. In addition, the production capacity and output scale of these companies are considerable. The changes in the data almost represent the business situation of the whole lithium chemical industry in the first half of the year.

In terms of absolute value of income, Ganfeng lithium industry, Tianqi lithium industry and Shengxin lithium energy Co., Ltd. are in the top three, reaching 2.96 billion yuan, 1.49 billion yuan and 992 million yuan respectively.

However, due to the fact that the output of lithium salt in the "two giants of the lithium industry" is very considerable, it ranked second and third in the world last year. The high base in the past made the overall growth rate in the first half of the year behind that of the peers.

In the current period, the growth rates of lithium salt business income of Ganfeng lithium industry and Tianqi lithium industry were 66.07% and 79.04%, respectively, which were lower than the industry average of 262.5%.

The lithium salt business of Tibet mining industry ranked first in the industry with a year-on-year growth rate of 2075.3%. However, the company's overall revenue scale is relatively limited, only 100 million yuan.

In contrast, the growth "gold content" is higher, and Shengxin lithium energy Co., Ltd. has both scale and growth advantages. Its lithium salt income in the first half of the year is second only to the two leading companies, with a year-on-year growth rate of 484.2%.

The interim report of Shengxin lithium energy showed that the company's lithium salt product output was 18500 tons, with a year-on-year increase of 150.24%; The sales volume was 17700 tons, with a year-on-year increase of 324.35%.

The part of revenue growth exceeding sales growth mainly comes from the rapid rise of lithium salt price in the first half of the year. Taking industrial grade lithium carbonate as an example, the domestic average price in the first half of the year was 81900 yuan / ton, up 76.5% over the same period last year.

In terms of profitability, the gross profit margin of each lithium salt production enterprise fully reflects the characteristics that the cost of salt lake is lower than that of lithium mine, and that of integrated enterprises is lower than that of external raw material enterprises.

In the current period, the gross profit margin of salt lake lithium carbonate products was 59.41%, which was higher than 46.68% of the "lithium compounds and derivatives (lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide, etc.) products" of Tianqi lithium industry. The gross profit margin of the above businesses of Tianqi lithium industry was also higher than that of Ganfeng lithium industry by 41.37%.

Compared with historical data, it can be seen that the profitability of lithium salt industry in the first half of the year has just entered the recovery period.

For example, in the high lithium salt price stage in 2017, the gross profit margin of Tianqi lithium derivatives once approached 70%, but it just recovered to about 46% in the first half of the year.

This is mainly because the industry leader, in order to smooth the price fluctuations of products, raw materials, products at both ends of the use of underwriting and long-term cooperation and other ways to stabilize business.

The raw materials of Tianqi lithium industry are from talison, a holding subsidiary. The company once pointed out that "the pricing of talison lithium concentrate refers to the price change of lithium products, and then two shareholders (Tianqi and Yabao) are given a certain discount, so there is a certain lag in pricing."

In terms of the overall profit margin of 11 companies, the average gross profit margin of 38.14% in the first half of the year was higher than that of other similar industries, but it was also unable to compare with the peak of the previous boom of the industry.

In other words, the whole lithium salt industry is far from entering the stage of large-scale profit release.

Lithium carbonate increased by 26.1% in the third quarter

After entering the third quarter, the profitability of the above-mentioned lithium salt enterprises is still expected to further expand.

Since July, the main change in the industry is the rapid increase in the cost side. According to SMM data, spodumene concentrate (6% grade, CIF China) was at 730 USD / T at the end of June, and the average price rose to 875 USD / T by August 18.

However, after the rapid rise in costs, the price of lithium salt also kept rising at the same time. For example, lithium carbonate broke the high fluctuation trend of the whole second quarter in early August and started a new round of rise.

According to wind data, the domestic market price of lithium carbonate was 88000 yuan / ton at the end of June, and had risen to 111000 yuan / ton by August 30. In the same period, the price of lithium hydroxide increased from 94000 yuan / ton to 120000 yuan / ton. The two major lithium salt products increased by 26.14% and 27.66% respectively in the current period.

Even if the cost and product prices keep rising at the same range, it is still possible to continue to improve the profitability trend of specific listed companies.

According to the source of raw materials, A-share listed lithium salt enterprises can be divided into import spodumene, Western Salt Lake and Jiangxi lepidolite.

Among them, the latter two have a high self-sufficiency rate and are limited by the impact of spodumene price rise. Most of the lithium salt enterprises with imported spodumene as raw materials are the industry leaders, and they have obtained high-quality resources in Australia and other places through holding shares or equity participation.

Taking Tianqi lithium industry as an example, the raw materials required are mainly from talison Australia, the holding subsidiary, and the sales income of lithium concentrate has been consolidated. For example, in the semi annual report, the company's revenue composition includes 36.7% of lithium concentrate and 63.3% of lithium compounds and derivatives.

Therefore, as long as the price of lithium salt keeps rising in the third quarter, the overall profitability of lithium salt enterprises with high self-sufficiency rate of raw materials will continue to grow.

On the other hand, the driving force from the production and marketing level can not be ignored.

After Salt Lake Co., Ltd. publicly said that "the daily output reaches 100 tons", in a recent telephone conference, some investors directly made an "annualized" estimate of 35000 tons of annual output of the company.

Although the estimation method is a little simple and crude, the output growth in the third quarter is a big probability event.

Salt Lake Co., Ltd. responded that the newly increased capacity of 20000 tons of lithium industry, a subsidiary of Lanke lithium industry, was not fully put into operation, but the high lithium mother liquor produced by the device was used to supply the original 10000 tons of lithium carbonate production capacity, so the daily output was increased.

"In summer, rising temperature is also one of the factors contributing to the increase in daily production." The above-mentioned people pointed out that although Lanke lithium has achieved normal production in winter, its production will decline.

In other words, the above production forecast of 35000 tons is not accurate enough, but the third quarter is a peak of lithium carbonate production.

In addition, the raw materials needed by Lanke lithium industry are from the old brine produced by Salt Lake Co., Ltd. after producing potassium chloride, the cost advantage is outstanding. Against the background of rising lithium carbonate price in August, the company's lithium salt business profitability in the third quarter is still expected to achieve month on month improvement.

The unfavorable factor is that the scale of lithium carbonate income of Salt Lake Co., Ltd. is still small, accounting for only 7.6% of the total revenue in the first half of the year, which will help the overall business performance of listed companies.

From the semi annual report data, the listed companies with high concentration of lithium salt business are Ganfeng lithium, Tianqi lithium, Shengxin lithium energy and Rongjie.