The global power lithium battery industry is currently in a situation where China, Japan, and South Korea are killing three countries. Competition between companies is standard, but it is often difficult for outsiders to understand the fierce competition. Recently, the two Korean power lithium battery companies, L.G. Chem and SKInnovation, The contradiction Intensified upgrade.

L.G. Chem even launched a series against S.K. Innovation, accusing the other party of stealing L.G. Chem's core technology related to lithium-ion batteries by hiring its employees. Stealing the core technology of competitors is a standard method in business competition, but this time L.G. Chem has moved the actual fire.

L.G. Chem and its U.S. subsidiary LGCMI jointly initiated the case against SKInnovation, which was filed at the same time as the U.S. International Trade Commission and the U.S. Delaware District Office.

According to foreign media, SKInnovation employs 77 technical employees and related personnel in the lithium-ion battery department of L.G. Chem. Many of these employees have participated in the research and development, manufacturing, assembly, and quality detection of L.G. Chem lithium-ion batteries. These employees publicly conspired to steal L.G. Chem's trade secrets and used the information to conduct employment deals with S.K. Innovation.

In terms of installed capacity, L.G. Chem ranked fourth in the world in 2018, while S.K. Innovation ranked outside the top ten. This time, why did L.G. Chem, as the industry's big brother, take out his anger on his younger brother, who is much smaller than himself, and does not even pose a threat?

The reason is that SKInnovation moved L.G. Chem's gold master cheese.

At the end of last year, Volkswagen Group announced that it had added S.K. Innovation as its electric vehicle battery supplier. In the future, innovation will mainly supply batteries for Volkswagen in North America and provide some batteries for pure electric vehicles processed by the Volkswagen Group in Europe.

Before that, Volkswagen's core power lithium battery supplier has always been L.G. Chem.

As soon as the news of Volkswagen was announced, S.K. Innovation announced a new power lithium battery plant in Jackson County, Georgia, USA, which is expected to be put into processing in 2022. S.K. Innovation then announced plans to build a second electric vehicle battery factory in Hungary, which caters to the needs of the public.

In addition, there is news that S.K. Innovation will also cooperate with Volkswagen to build a battery factory in Germany.

According to the statistics of "my country's New Energy Vehicle Industry Market Foresight and Investment Strategic Planning Decomposition Report" released by the Prospective Industry Research Institute, the production and sales of my country's new energy vehicles in 2018 were 1.27 million and 1.256 million respectively, compared with the same period of the previous year. Rose 59.9% and 61.7%. According to an industry research report released by iResearch, although my country's auto market was cold for a short time in 2018, new energy vehicles bucked the trend, and the market scale expanded rapidly. It is expected to achieve the target of 5 million cars in 2020. My country's new energy vehicle industry will enter a more profound marketization process with the continuous introduction of relevant policies.

However, in the accelerated withdrawal of subsidies and the accelerated entry of foreign capital into the Chinese market, the market has recently expressed certain doubts about the new energy vehicle industry. The critical aspect of worry is that subsidies account for a high proportion of profits in each industrial chain link. Once contributions are withdrawn, the level of profitability may decline; if subsidies stimulate demand to drop sharply, sales growth may decline; after overseas giants enter the Chinese market, the share of independent companies or squeezed.

In response to market concerns, CITIC Securities believes that the post-subsidy era will promote the optimization of the structure, and companies with marketization capabilities and product competitiveness are expected to gain a higher market share and enjoy the rising dividends of the industry. In addition, demand turns market-driven, and the supply of suitable products will boost demand. The investment strategy of CITIC Securities Supply is to seek global competitiveness from the supply chain and find high-quality companies in the supply chain with international competitiveness. One is batteries and critical raw materials, and the other is new energy thermal management.

Guosen Securities research report believes that domestic power lithium battery manufacturers already can compete globally, and first-line power lithium battery manufacturers continue to expand production, driving lithium battery equipment into a boom cycle; the lithium-ion battery industry has structural excess, survival of the fittest, and increased industry concentration. Optimistic about the leading lithium battery equipment companies bound to first-line power lithium battery factories.

After sorting out the upper, middle, and lower reaches of the new energy vehicle industry chain, China National Financial Securities proposed: upstream resources such as cobalt and lithium, offer to wait and see; midstream recommends companies with adequate preparations in overseas industrial chains and high-nickel industrial chains, as well as emerging second-tier battery companies; In terms of the supply chain, Tesla's industrial chain will be the focus of investment in 2019, and components will focus on thermal management and high-voltage parts.