(Yicai) April 16 -- Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology and battery materials supplier Do-Fluoride New Materials have reported positive earnings for the first quarter, mainly driven by a sharp increase in demand for lithium batteries since last year

CATL’s net profit jumped 49 percent to CNY20.7 billion (USD3 billion) in the three months ended March 31 from a year earlier, the firm announced yesterday. That topped forecasts for CNY18.1 billion and CNY20 billion by AllianceBernstein and CLSA, respectively. Operating revenue surged 52 percent to CNY129.1 billion (USD18.9 billion).

Compared with the fourth quarter of last year, CATL’s profit was down nearly 11 percent, which is considered a normal seasonal pullback within the industry.

CATL’s shares [SHE: 300750] closed up 5.3 percent at CNY453.98 (USD66.52) each in Shenzhen today, bringing the stock’s gain so far this year to 24 percent.

The Ningde-based company also unveiled plans yesterday to establish a new energy minerals subsidiary, Times Resources Group Xiamen, with a registered capital of CNY30 billion, to further expand its foothold in critical minerals and combine its existing mining assets.

Do-Fluoride, a leading manufacturer of chemical products and raw materials, turned a CNY308 million (USD45.2 million) loss a year ago into a net profit of CNY213 million in the first quarter, its financial report showed yesterday. Revenue rose 14 percent to CNY9.4 billion (USD1.4 billion).

The Jiaozuo-based business attributed the turnaround to the recovery in raw material prices in the second half of last year.

The price of Do-Fluoride’s main product, lithium hexafluorophosphate, plunged to CNY47,000 (USD6,890) per ton in July, pushing the entire industry into the red. But a boom in demand from the new energy vehicle and energy storage sectors boosted the price to as much as CNY180,000 (USD26,400) per ton by December.

China’s sales of energy storage batteries soared 64 percent to over 1,700 gigawatt-hours last year, with sales more than doubling in the period, according to figures from the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance.

That continued in the first quarter, when power and energy storage battery sales rose 53 percent to 437.1 GWh from a year earlier, with energy storage battery sales alone climbing nearly 112 percent, data from the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance also showed.

 

Editor: Futura Costaglione