北美加税靴子落地。5 月14 日美国宣布对包括锂电池、太阳能电池等中国进口产品加征关税，其中对非电动汽车锂电池产品关税从7.5%提升至25%，豁免2 年至2026 年执行。短期看加税或诱发渠道在缓冲期内提前备货，中长期公司或可通过产能转移减轻关税影响。On July 21, 2024, Huabao Xinneng released the 2024 interim report performance forecast.
The semi-annual performance exceeded expectations. The company is expected to achieve net profit of 6,000 to 80 million yuan in the first half of the year, and is expected to achieve net profit of 3200 to 42 million yuan without return to mother, reversing losses over the previous year; of these, single Q2 is expected to achieve net profit of 3100 to 51 million yuan, and is expected to achieve net profit without deduction of 1771 to 37.71 million yuan. Performance continues to improve over Q1's 2900/ 13.29 million yuan month-on-month.
The company's Q2 performance continued to improve month-on-month. We believe it is mainly due to the reduction in raw material prices+completion of high-priced inventory and the implementation of efficiency results: 1) Raw material prices continued to drop in the second quarter. After a brief rise in Q1 to 0.113 million yuan/ton in early April, the price of lithium carbonate futures quickly fell back to 0.092 million/ton at the end of June. The quarterly decline reached 17%, and continued to drop to 0.086 million/ton at the present (July 22). Batteries account for about 30% of the cost structure of portable energy storage, and the drop in lithium prices helps the company recover its profit level; 2) High-price inventory has been digested & product structure changes. In 2023, the company was affected by the original price lock agreement in the rapid price reduction environment, and gross margin was under pressure. At the end of 2023, the company basically completed the removal of high-price inventory. High-price inventory basically eliminated disturbances in the company's profit level. At the same time, lithium iron phosphate products were sold at the same price due to the higher cost compared to ternary lithium products, so the increase in proportion also helped further optimize the gross margin level; 3) Reducing fees and increasing the company's Q1 and efficiency The cost ratio was greatly optimized by 14pct to 39.1% year-on-year during the period. In the second quarter, the company continued to strengthen accurate marketing efforts while actively optimizing the labor cost structure. We speculate that the results of reducing fees and increasing efficiency will continue to be realized.
North American tax-added boots have arrived. On May 14, the United States announced additional tariffs on products imported from China, including lithium batteries and solar cells. Among them, tariffs on lithium battery products for non-electric vehicles were raised from 7.5% to 25%, exempted from implementation from 2 to 2026. In the short term, if tax increases or inducement channels prepare goods in advance during the buffer period, medium- to long-term companies may reduce the impact of tariffs through capacity transfers.
Profit forecasting and investment ratings. Considering that the company's cost improvement and fee reduction and efficiency progress exceeded expectations, we raised the company's net profit from 2024-2026 to 0.2 billion yuan, 0.3 billion yuan, and 0.35 billion yuan respectively. The corresponding PE increased 49% and 17% year over year, respectively. The corresponding PE was 41.5 times, 27.9 times, and 23.8 times, respectively, maintaining the “increase” investment rating.
Risk warning: Market demand falls short of expectations, industry competition intensifies, household storage business progress falls short of expectations, and trade frictions intensify.