Downstream demand is steadily increasing, and the anode material market is picking up!
As soon as the Spring Festival ended in 2024, the price war in the new energy vehicle market heated up rapidly. BYD took the lead in adjusting its strategy and lowered the price of Qin PLUS to the 70,000 yuan range. This move immediately triggered an enthusiastic response from the market. Other automakers responded quickly and joined the fierce price competition. According to the Passenger Car Association, 2024 will be a critical year for new energy vehicle companies to stabilize their market position, and the fierce market competition is evident from this. It is precisely because of this price war that more consumers are embracing new energy vehicles, thereby stimulating demand for new energy products.
Looking back on 2023, the anode materials and downstream lithium battery industries have jointly experienced the difficult process of destocking. Industry profits and operating rates have both declined, and market competition has become increasingly fierce. According to financial report data, CATL's battery system (including power batteries and energy storage batteries) capacity utilization rate dropped to 70.47% in 2023, a year-on-year decrease of 12.93 percentage points, setting a new low in the past five years. However, since March 2024, demand from downstream battery factories has gradually picked up, bringing positive signals of recovery to the anode material market.
Supply side:
The production schedule of downstream battery factories in March 2024 will increase by approximately 24% month-on-month, and the production schedule in April will increase by approximately 16% month-on-month. Downstream demand continues to grow.
Battery company A said: After the Spring Festival, our production load began to increase, and the overall operating rate returned to about 80% by March.
Battery company B said: We are still focusing on power batteries, energy storage is slowly increasing, market demand has improved to some extent, and order volume has begun to increase.
Battery company C said: We are increasing production, with almost 70% of the capacity operational. The demand for power batteries is recovering quickly, energy storage is currently growing at a slow pace, and the current inventory pressure is not great.
Driven by downstream demand, orders for anode materials increased, and a new round of order delivery began, so the output of anode materials began to increase. At present, the anode material market shows obvious polarization. The leading anode companies maintain more than 80% of the production load, while the production activities of small and medium-sized anode companies are still hovering at a low level, and the companies with better performance can barely reach 50% of the production load.
Inventory:
Longzhong Information counts 16 representative anode companies. As of February data, the inventory of anode material raw materials and semi-finished products is 2.6 times the output, which is still at the safety stock level. Therefore, the procurement of anode materials in the raw material market remains rigid and rational.
Since the anode market needs to reserve raw materials in advance, the consumption of raw materials has accelerated due to the increase in production in March, so the enthusiasm for purchasing raw materials has increased