\u3000\u30 Beijing Telesound Electronics Co.Ltd(003004) 09 Guangdong Dowstone Technology Co.Ltd(300409) )
[key points of investment]
Founded in 2007, the company was mainly engaged in the business of glaze materials in the early stage of its establishment, and it is the first share of China State Construction Engineering Corporation Limited(601668) ceramic materials. At present, the company has gradually formed three main businesses of “carbon materials + lithium battery materials + ceramic materials”. Carbon materials are mainly new conductive agents such as carbon nanotubes and graphene, and lithium battery materials are mainly cobalt salts and ternary precursors. With the explosion of power battery demand, the company’s new energy related business has become an important support for performance growth.
Carbon material is the focus of the company’s future business development. Accelerate the expansion of production and complete the integrated layout of “powder slurry”. As a new conductive agent, carbon nanotubes have good mechanical, electrical and thermal properties, which can significantly improve the rate performance, low temperature performance, cycle life and energy density of the battery. In recent years, with the maturity of carbon nanotube production technology, the replacement of traditional conductive agents is accelerating. It is expected that the compound growth rate of carbon nanotube can reach 58% from 2021 to 2025. The company is one of the early enterprises to realize the mass production of graphene conductive agent, and has mastered the complete production technology of carbon nanotube conductive agent materials. Since 2020, the company has straightened out its thinking and made the carbon material sector one of the focus of its future development. The company’s carbon nanotube slurry production technology is leading in the industry, but the early powder is mainly purchased. In the future, while expanding the slurry capacity, the company will accelerate the construction of powder capacity and realize self supply of powder.
The company continues to improve the upstream nickel and cobalt resource layout to provide guarantee for the rapid development of precursor business. Ternary precursor is an important raw material for preparing ternary cathode. Its morphology, particle size, particle size distribution and other indicators directly determine the performance of the battery. It has the characteristics of high customization and high development barriers. Cost and customer location are the key to enterprise competition. In terms of cost, the company has formed an integrated layout from raw material procurement, hydrometallurgy, nickel cobalt salt to precursor preparation. With large-scale production, the cost will be further reduced; In terms of customers, with profound product and technology accumulation, the company has customer resources all over China’s first-line cathode enterprises. With the rapid growth of the company’s customer demand, the company’s precursor shipment is expected to be in high volume quickly and rank among the first-line enterprises in the industry.
The company takes ceramic materials as the industry leader and will achieve contrarian growth in 2021. The company is a leading enterprise in ceramic materials. The company has formed a good relationship with top20 customers in the downstream industry. The downstream of the company is a building materials enterprise, which is highly related to the real estate industry. In 2021, under the pressure of the real estate industry, the sales volume of the company’s products increased against the trend, and the market share increased significantly, fully reflecting the competitiveness of the industry. In the first half of 2021, the company sold 630 million yuan of ceramic materials, 107.05% year-on-year.
[investment suggestions]
The company has realized a major transformation from ceramic inorganic materials to lithium battery core materials enterprises, based on
The fundamental transformation realized in this area will usher in a huge opportunity for the great development of lithium battery materials and fully enjoy the industry growth dividend brought by global carbon neutralization. We estimate that the operating revenue of the company from 2021 to 2023 will be 5.15/73.0/11.07 billion yuan respectively, and the net profit attributable to the parent company will be 5.6/7.5/1.05 billion yuan. From 2021 to 2023, the earnings per share were 0.97/1.29/1.82 yuan respectively, and the corresponding PE was 23 / 18 / 12 times respectively. It was cautiously optimistic and was rated as “overweight”.
1. Key assumptions
1) the compound growth rate of carbon nanotubes from 2022 to 2025 is more than 50%: we predict that the sales volume of new energy vehicles will reach 23.03 million in 2025, with a compound growth rate of 26%, corresponding to the power battery demand of 1599gwh. Combined with consumption and energy storage batteries, the battery demand will reach 1838gwh in 2025. The technical trends of ternary high nickel, the improvement of iron lithium permeability, the accelerated application of silicon-based negative electrode, as well as the performance progress and cost reduction of CNT carbon tubes will lead to the improvement of CNT permeability. In 2025, the penetration rate of CNT in the fields of power, energy storage, consumption and silicon carbon anode will reach 88%, 38% and 90% respectively, corresponding to 940000 tons of CNT slurry in 2025, with a market space of 34.5 billion yuan, with a compound increase of more than 50%;
2) the company’s carbon materials business: considering that the company’s carbon nanotubes are in the stage of rapid improvement in penetration, combined with the company’s current capacity plan, we believe that the company’s revenue growth from 2021 to 2023 is expected to reach 154%, 159% and 69%; In addition, the carbon nanotube conductive agent in the early stage of the company adopts the form of purchased powder. With the production capacity of the self built powder of the company reaching the production capacity in 2022, the gross profit margin will be improved. We expect that the gross profit margin of the company will reach 33%, 36% and 38% in 2021, 2022 and 2023 respectively.
3) the company’s precursor business: considering the rapid growth of new energy vehicles and the rapid expansion of the company’s precursor business capacity, it is planned to reach 150000 tons and 250000 tons by the end of 2022 and 2023 respectively. We predict that the company’s revenue will grow rapidly, with a compound growth rate of 58%; In addition, the upstream nickel and cobalt prices of the company will rise to a certain extent in 2021, and the company’s precursor products enjoy a certain inventory income, which will reach a phased high. We predict that the gross profit margin of lithium battery materials will reach 23% in 2021. With the decline of bulk commodity prices in 2022 and 2023, the company’s gross profit margin also fell steadily, 19% and 18% respectively.
2. Innovation
The innovation of this paper points out that:
1) after analyzing the competitive factors of the ternary precursor industry, we believe that the precursor industry is relatively customized, with high entry barriers and strong customer stickiness, and the customer location is one of the important factors in the competition of precursor enterprises; In addition, the production cost of precursors accounts for the vast majority. We judge that the future cost will become an important factor in the competition of precursor enterprises, and the means to obtain the cost lies in the upstream integrated layout.
2) this paper analyzes the main technical progress direction of the power battery industry, and expounds the important role of carbon nanotubes in high nickel cathode and silicon carbon cathode, so as to make a detailed split of the demand for carbon nanotubes.
3. Potential catalysis
The doping amount of silicon carbon negative electrode of Tesla 4680 battery will be further improved, and the application of carbon nanotubes in the negative field will be significantly accelerated. Domestic enterprises are accelerating the development and industrial production of single wall tubes, and the application in the field of single wall tubes is expected to achieve domestic substitution Byd Company Limited(002594) is the first enterprise in China to use carbon nanotubes as conductive agent. With the explosive growth of vehicle sales and the continuous increase of battery output, it will also accelerate the substitution of carbon nanotubes for traditional conductive agent in the field of power battery.
[risk tips]
According to the company’s carbon nanotube production capacity planning, we predict that the compound growth rate of the company’s carbon nanotube sales from 2021 to 2023 is expected to reach 130%, but there are risks that the company’s carbon nanotube production capacity construction progress is less than expected and the downstream customer certification is less than expected;
According to the company’s precursor capacity planning, we predict that the sales volume of the company’s precursor business will double in 2022 and 2023, but there is a risk that the competition in the precursor industry will intensify and the company’s shipment volume will be lower than expected;
The price of precursors is affected by nickel, cobalt and other resource products. At present, the price of nickel in the industry is at a high level. We assume that the price of precursors will fall steadily with the price of nickel, but there is a risk that the decline of nickel price will exceed expectations and affect the company’s inventory income.
