Nowadays, all kinds of electronic equipment and electric vehicles have a relatively strong demand for lithium batteries, but everyone may not think that it is this ordinary lithium battery, but the domestic has not mastered enough share to compete with foreign companies, what is going on?
In fact, it is not that the research and development and production of lithium batteries has been hindered, but that in lithium batteries, a type of material called aluminum-plastic film is controlled by Japanese and Korean companies, and 73% of the global share of such materials is monopolized by Japanese and Korean companies.
In January this year, the domestic lithium battery industry created 23 billion cooperative orders in 7 days, with a cumulative production capacity of 850,000 tons, but such a large scale has also created high profits for Japanese and Korean companies.
The so-called aluminum-plastic film controlled by Japan and South Korea has played a key role in it, the so-called aluminum-plastic film, simply put, is a thin film wrapped in the electrodes inside the lithium battery, which is equivalent to a protective cover, which can effectively protect the battery and extend the life of the battery.
In 2020, nearly 81% of the world's electronic technology equipment needs to use this type of protective film.
Japan's Showa Electric and DNP, together with South Korea's Kurimura Chemical and LGC, control 73% of the global aluminum-plastic film market share.
Well-known car companies such as Volkswagen and Audi of Germany, as well as Nissan, Daimler and Hyundai, are using aluminum-plastic films from Japanese and Korean companies to package batteries.
Therefore, the strength of Japanese and Korean companies can be seen.
Relying on large-scale market share, Japanese and Korean companies control the pricing power of global aluminum-plastic film and make huge profits from it.
Especially in the Chinese market, due to the strong sales capacity of automobiles and other electronic products, Japanese and Korean companies regard the Chinese market as a cornucopia, not only controlling the supply rights of the vast majority of enterprises, but even arbitrarily pricing.
Since 2019, Japanese and Korean companies seem to have reached a tacit understanding to sell the pricing of products such as aluminum-plastic film to Chinese companies at a unified price increase of 30%.
At that time, Chinese enterprises had to rely on the procurement of foreign material accessories for a long time because of the slow progress of research and development of soft pack batteries, which gave Japanese and Korean enterprises an opportunity.
According to statistics, the purchase cost of aluminum-plastic film that was once just a battery production plant in Zhejiang is 2.7 million yuan higher than the average foreign price.
Such an unfair but helpless situation has plagued Chinese enterprises for many years, fortunately, there are still many enterprises determined to break through the monopoly and take the road of independent research and development, Selen New Material is one of them.
In 2016, Selen New Materials sensed the trend of rising prices of aluminum-plastic film products, so in the same year, Selen New Materials, which had suffered losses, gritted its teeth and smashed 550 million yuan and bought an aluminum-plastic film production line in Japan.
At that time, Selen New Material was the only enterprise in China that mastered all the aluminum-plastic film production lines, production patents and production technologies, and was once considered to be the savior of domestic aluminum-plastic film.
At that time, many battery manufacturers such as Fu Neng gave orders to Selen New Materials in order to break the monopoly of Japanese and Korean enterprises, but what was disappointing was that Selen New Materials did not achieve much after buying technology, but also fell into the quagmire of financial fraud.
From 2016 to 2018, Selen New Materials accumulated 180 million yuan of counterfeit profits, defrauding the funds and trust of many investors.
However, Selen New Material soon realized that it could not continue, so it continued to invest money and talents from technology and equipment to achieve a breakthrough in domestic aluminum-plastic film.
On January 10 this year, Selen New Material publicly stated that the company's aluminum-plastic film products have a one-time pass rate of up to 90%, and from the customer's order feedback, whether it is the yield rate or the cost performance, it is the first existence in China.
Therefore, from this point of view, selen new materials of aluminum-plastic film products have the strength of domestic substitution, if the future can further improve the quality and production capacity, breaking the monopoly of Japan and South Korea will not be a problem.
Of course, not only Selen New Materials, in 2004, a domestic plastic company named Zijiang, specially set up an aluminum-plastic film research and development team, and in 2014, it took 10 years to achieve independent research and development, and now there is already part of the market scale.
Since 2010, there have been many material manufacturers such as Mingguan and Huazheng in China, and their technical strength has reached an unprecedented level, although there is still a gap with Japanese and Korean enterprises, but the future strength is immeasurable.
Regarding the product of aluminum-plastic film, do you think that in the future, we can beat Japanese and Korean enterprises and achieve domestic substitution?