The average price of power batteries fell by 4~7% in January and may continue to fall in February

According to TrendForce research, the global lithium battery market was still sluggish in January, battery manufacturers still need to destock their inventories, production utilization rates are hovering at a low level, and the average price of various power battery products (hereinafter all in RMB) has not stopped falling. Among them, the largest decline was for automotive soft-pack ternary power batteries, with a monthly decrease of 7.3% to 0.51 yuan/Wh. The average price is expected to continue to decline in February.

In terms of energy storage cells, the Lunar New Year is approaching and there is no significant fluctuation in market demand. Although the production utilization rate of the energy storage cell industry is not as good as that of power cells, the price of energy storage cells remains relatively stable, with a monthly decrease of 2.2% to 0.44 yuan/ Wh.

In terms of consumer batteries, terminal demand was weak in January. At the same time, the price of lithium cobalt oxide raw materials continued to fall. The price of cathode materials fell by about 7.4% month-on-month. This also affected the cost of lithium cobalt oxide batteries to continue to decline slightly in January. The average price of battery cells fell by 5.9% month-on-month. %, to 5.43 yuan/Ah. At present, the price of upstream raw materials has stopped falling and is stable. As the Lunar New Year holiday approaches, due to the small-scale demand for upstream material companies to replenish their stocks, the price of lithium raw materials has rebounded slightly recently after stopping falling. The price of cobalt raw materials has generally stabilized, but in terms of downstream demand In the absence of a full recovery, the momentum for the continued rebound in raw material prices is still insufficient, so the overall price trend of consumer batteries is expected to be flat in February.

TrendForce said that the current price of lithium salt has stopped falling and stabilized, but the growth of the electric vehicle market may slow down in 2024. For example, Tesla already mentioned in last year’s fourth quarter financial report meeting that sales growth this year will converge. In the face of intensified market competition and buyers' demands for cost reduction, battery suppliers in mainland China may also choose to reduce costs and push the price of power cells to the stage of 0.3 yuan/Wh. This will affect some companies' ability to obtain upstream raw materials. Disadvantaged power battery cell suppliers are facing operational difficulties. Under the above development trend, it is currently expected that the average price of the overall battery cell market will continue to decline in the first quarter.