YICAI | Ronbay Gains After Chinese Battery Materials Supplier Expects to Have Made First-Half Profit
(Yicai) July 7 -- Shares of Ronbay New Energy Technology rose after the Chinese supplier of lithium battery cathode materials said it likely returned to profit in the first half, marking a third straight quarter of profitability, as conditions improve across the new energy vehicle sector.
Ronbay [SHA: 688005] closed up 5.1 percent at CNY28.56 (USD4.20) per share in Shanghai today, after earlier gaining by as much as 12.7 percent, though the stock is still down over 19 percent since the end of last year.
Net profit likely reached CNY100 million to CNY120 million (USD14.7 million to USD17.7 million) in the six months ended June 30, compared with a net loss of CNY68.4 million (USD10.1 million) a year earlier, the Ningbo-based company announced yesterday.
Ronbay attributed the improvement mainly to the NEV sector's recovery and better market conditions, adding that profitability at its ternary lithium cathode-material business continued to improve, while shipments to overseas clients grew significantly.
The turnaround follows a difficult 2025, when intense price competition in China's NEV sector weighed heavily on battery material manufacturers. Ronbay suffered losses in the first three quarters of last year and did not regain profitability until the fourth quarter, when it reported CNY16.2 million. It had a full-year loss of CNY187 million.
In the first quarter of this year, Ronbay logged an CNY11.6 million profit. It had implied second-quarter earnings of between CNY88.4 million and CNY108.4 million, a 662 percent to 834 percent surge from the January to March period.
Ronbay also disclosed that its lithium iron phosphate cathode project is proceeding according to plan; its lithium manganese iron phosphate business has achieved full production and sales; and its sodium ion battery cathode business has entered the mass shipments stage. The effectiveness of its platform-based strategy is gradually becoming clear, the firm added.
Founded in 2014, Ronbay supplies positive electrode materials to global battery manufacturers such as Contemporary Amperex Technology, BYD, and LG Chem.
In January, the firm announced that it had penned a six-year procurement contract for lithium iron phosphate cathode materials with CATL, claiming that the total order would exceed CNY120 billion (USD17.7 billion). The figure met with market skepticism and drew the attention of regulators. Ultimately, Ronbay and its management faced administrative penalties from the China Securities Regulatory Commission for inaccurate information disclosure.