Shenzhen maintained its position as China's top foreign trade city in the first half of this year, with the "new three categories" represented by new energy vehicles, lithium batteries, and photovoltaic products continuing to lead Shenzhen's foreign trade growth. Among these, Shenzhen's private enterprises exported lithium batteries worth 30.44 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 30.4%.
The outstanding performance of lithium battery exports is inseparable from the strong support of upstream materials. In the global lithium battery industry competitive landscape, Shenzhen has quietly emerged as a unique "material team."
Shenzhen Kedali Industry Co.,Ltd. (002850.SZ), Betery (835185.BJ), Shenzhen Capchem Technology Co.,Ltd. (300037.SZ), and Shenzhen Senior Technology Material Co.,Ltd. (300568.SZ) - these four companies respectively occupy leading positions in the four key material fields of lithium battery structural components, anode materials, electrolyte, and separators.
The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Research Institute considers these four companies to be Shenzhen's lithium battery material "Four Musketeers." When the domestic lithium battery materials field was almost blank in the early 21st century, they dedicated themselves to research and successfully broke through the monopoly barriers of Japanese and Korean companies, gradually climbing to the top of the global industry.
They are not only leaders in China's lithium battery materials industry, but also a vivid epitome of the rise of China's lithium battery materials industry, and an embodiment of the innovative spirit in the technological field since the establishment of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone 45 years ago.
Today, lithium batteries are widely used in consumer electronics, new energy vehicles, and energy storage. When disassembled, lithium batteries can be roughly divided into four main materials: cathode, anode, electrolyte, and separator. The cathode is the main storage and release site for lithium ions, determining the battery's energy density, voltage, and cycle life; anode materials store and release lithium ions, affecting charging speed and cycle stability; electrolyte serves as a medium for lithium ion transport, influencing battery low-temperature performance and safety; separators build safe lithium ion channels between positive and negative electrodes. Additionally, structural components (such as shells and covers) provide physical support, packaging protection, and electrical connections for batteries, making them equally important lithium battery materials.
At the end of the 20th century, lithium batteries were successfully commercialized by Japanese companies and widely used in portable electronic devices, triggering a revolution in battery technology. According to data from Open Source Securities, Japanese companies occupied 93% of the global lithium battery industry market share in 2000, almost monopolizing the global lithium battery materials market.
Taking the key anode material as an example, Japanese companies applied mesocarbon microbeads (MCMB) as anodes in lithium-ion batteries in 1993, with prices almost 10 times higher than current anode materials, and relatively poor performance in specific capacity and rate performance. Later, Korean anode material companies grew rapidly by improving supply chain localization rates and expanding production capacity, with global market share rising from 15% in 2005 to 39% in 2010.
Therefore, most of China's lithium batteries and materials had to rely on imports, but the high prices of imported lithium battery materials and the technical barriers from Japan and Korea troubled domestic companies.
Facing this predicament, Shenzhen emerged with a group of pioneering entrepreneurs who fought to break through in the field of lithium battery key materials.
In 1996, Ningbo brothers Li Jianli and Li Jianju came south to Shenzhen with 20,000 yuan to start their business. In 1999, BYD was troubled by the high prices and long supply cycles of Japanese structural components, seeking cooperation with Kedali to jointly tackle lithium battery structural component process difficulties. After 20 failed attempts within a year, they finally reduced costs to one-third of Japanese imported products.
While Kedali was working hard to solve structural component problems, the localization of another core lithium battery material, electrolyte, also faced severe challenges. In 2000, Japanese companies held a 95% market share in electrolyte. It was in this year that Capchem began to engage in lithium battery electrolyte. Leveraging its rich experience in capacitor electrolyte, the company gradually established complete electrolyte experimental and production lines. Through unremitting efforts, Capchem's lithium battery electrolyte sales volume jumped to first globally in 2014, breaking through Japanese and Korean monopoly.
Also around 2000, the preparation technology for separators, another key internal component of lithium batteries, was monopolized by Japanese and American companies, with prices remaining high. In 2003, Senior Technology Material was established in Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei area, initially mainly engaged in lithium battery separator distribution. Later, Senior decided to conduct independent R&D, investing everything to overcome technical difficulties, and finally successfully built China's first dry separator production line in 2008, producing the first domestic separator. This marked the beginning of separator localization, making Senior the world's first company to simultaneously possess both dry and wet separator production technologies.
The localization of lithium battery anode materials followed a similar path. In 2002, He Xueqin was attracted by an anode material project at the Shenzhen Hi-Tech Fair. Although China had abundant anode material raw material resources, the core processing technology was still controlled by Japanese companies, and the situation of high import dependence urgently needed to change. He Xueqin actively promoted Baoan Group's investment in Betery, leading the team to use "primitive methods" to repeatedly test graphite particles tens of thousands of times. Finally, in 2004, Betery pioneered the launch of natural graphite anode material 818 in the industry. Subsequently, the company launched multiple natural graphite anode materials with both high specific capacity and high cost-performance advantages, gradually breaking foreign technical monopolies.
Under the heavy technical blockade and high price barriers of Japanese and Korean giants, Shenzhen's lithium battery material "Four Musketeers" staged magnificent breakthroughs "from nothing to something." Kedali, Capchem, Senior, and Betery, with their pioneering entrepreneurial spirit and relentless technical innovation, successively conquered the difficulties of lithium battery core material localization, entering the first tier of their respective segments and gradually establishing China's core position in the global lithium battery materials field.
Thirty years of dedicated effort have made Shenzhen's lithium battery "Four Musketeers" a force that cannot be ignored in the global lithium battery materials field.
While people focus on battery and vehicle giants like CATL and BYD, these "hidden champions" deeply embedded in the upstream industrial chain have quietly built technological moats, becoming leaders in their respective market segments.
Starting from a 15-square-meter rental apartment, Kedali has grown into a leading domestic R&D and manufacturing company for battery precision structural components and automotive structural components, with a market value exceeding 30 billion yuan. Through years of continuous R&D investment, the company has achieved technological breakthroughs in power battery precision structural components, developing battery secondary short-circuit protection structures and integrated explosion-proof structures for power battery covers and shells, significantly improving overall battery safety. Additionally, the company is actively exploring new markets, gradually entering the humanoid robot field to create the company's second growth curve.
On August 16, Kedali released its 2025 mid-year performance report. In the first half of this year, the company achieved operating revenue of 6.645 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.01%; net profit attributable to shareholders of 769 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.72%; adjusted net profit attributable to shareholders of 720 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.61%. Kedali stated that the steady growth in performance was mainly due to the continued rise in new energy vehicle sales, driving increased power battery installations and thus boosting demand for precision structural component orders; meanwhile, the company's cost reduction and efficiency improvement measures showed significant results. According to Dongwu Securities data, Kedali holds over 50% of the domestic structural component shipment share and over 30% globally, firmly maintaining its industry leadership position.
As a veteran electrolyte supplier, Capchem remains in the first tier of domestic electrolyte suppliers through its technological accumulation and customer stickiness. The company focuses on high energy density, high safety, and wide temperature range technologies in its battery chemicals business, developing new products including sodium-ion battery electrolyte, lithium iron manganese phosphate battery electrolyte, high-voltage system electrolyte, solid electrolytes, and multifunctional additives. According to SPIR statistics, Capchem's Chinese market share exceeds 10%, ranking in the first tier.
In Q1 2025, against the backdrop of fierce competition in the lithium battery key materials industry, Capchem's battery chemicals shipment volume increased significantly year-on-year, with revenue reaching 2.002 billion yuan, an increase of 32.14% compared to the same period last year. Capchem attributed the revenue growth to expanded sales scale. In Q1 this year, peer company Tinci Materials ranked first in the industry with revenue of 3.489 billion yuan and net profit of 150 million yuan. Capchem's Q1 net profit reached 230 million yuan, far exceeding peer companies in the same period.
Affected by overcapacity in the separator and anode materials industries, Senior and Betery experienced performance fluctuations in Q1 this year, but still outperformed other companies in their industries.
In Q1 this year, Senior achieved revenue of 889 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.44%; net profit attributable to shareholders of 47 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 56.39%. According to Frost & Sullivan data, Senior has ranked second globally in lithium-ion battery separator shipments for five consecutive years, with global market share increasing from 11.0% in 2020 to 14.4% in 2024. Its dry separator market share is 25.6%, ranking first globally.
Betery has ranked first globally in anode material shipments for fifteen consecutive years, establishing a relatively complete industrial chain layout in both natural graphite and artificial graphite anode materials. Q1 operating revenue was 3.392 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 3.88%; net profit attributable to shareholders was 176 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 19.2%. The performance decline was mainly due to industry challenges including intensified market competition, oversupply, and low-price operations.
Facing the global new energy industry landscape restructuring wave, Shenzhen's lithium battery "Four Musketeers" are accelerating strategic deployment, actively betting on overseas market expansion and solid-state battery business development.
To meet overseas customer capacity needs, Kedali has established overseas production bases in Germany, Sweden, and Hungary. On June 21 this year, the company announced an additional 50 million euro investment to build the third-phase structural component factory in Hungary. This project can achieve annual output value of 100 million euros, fully entering the "cylindrical + prismatic" battery structural component market, providing supporting services for European factory clients such as CATL, BYD, and Samsung SDI. The company is also advancing base construction in the United States and Malaysia to further expand overseas markets.
Capchem maintains close ties with global customers and actively develops global markets. The company has established over 20 production bases and offices worldwide. The Poland Capchem base that began production last year has achieved profitability, with annual production capacity of 40,000 tons of lithium battery electrolyte. In March this year, based on global market demand and industrial layout, the company established Korea Capchem Co., Ltd. and Norelte Technology (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., further improving Capchem's industrial layout in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Additionally, the U.S. Capchem battery chemicals project is steadily advancing.
In the solid-state battery field, Capchem's affiliated company has built a solid electrolyte material production platform and currently achieved small-batch supply.
Senior is also actively developing overseas markets. In June this year, the Malaysia Penang "Super Factory" Phase I, with a total investment of nearly 5 billion yuan, was completed. It is the world's largest production base for lithium-ion battery separators and solid-state battery rigid frameworks, with annual production of 2 billion square meters of wet and coated separators.
In the solid-state battery field, Senior's affiliated company has achieved mass production of oxide electrolytes and launched various products for next-generation semi-solid and solid-state battery material applications.
Betery is the first company in China's anode industry to go overseas, building global competitive advantages with Indonesia and Morocco projects as strategic points. In 2024, the company successfully advanced the production of the Indonesia integrated project for 80,000 tons of new energy lithium battery anode materials (Phase I) and launched construction of Phase II with 80,000 tons of anode material capacity in Indonesia. This project effectively filled the gap in lithium battery anode materials in Indonesia and the entire ASEAN region, further expanding Betery's overseas market and enhancing global competitiveness.
Simultaneously, Betery launched the Mediterranean New Technology project for 50,000 tons of lithium battery cathode materials and 60,000 tons of lithium battery anode materials in Morocco.
Furthermore, Betery has comprehensively deployed in the solid-state battery materials field, pioneering the establishment of solid electrolyte production lines with both dry and wet processes exceeding hundred-ton annual capacity, achieving shipments. The company has developed multiple new solid electrolyte materials, with low-cost, high-performance lithium aluminum titanium phosphate materials achieving ton-level shipments.
From the predicament of being technologically constrained in the past to today's global leadership in segmented fields, the rise of Shenzhen's lithium battery material "Four Musketeers" is a vivid epitome of China's lithium battery materials industry development from nothing to something, from weak to strong.
Facing new challenges of capacity fluctuations and international competition, relying on deep technological accumulation and strategic bets on frontier fields like solid-state batteries, they are accelerating global deployment with a more open attitude to participate in international competition and cooperation. Each step of their exploration adds new footnotes to the development of China's "new three categories."
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