28, Hunan Yuneng disclosed its third quarterly report for 2026.
The report shows that in the first three quarters of 2026, Hunan Yuneng achieved revenue of 57.508 billion yuan, an increase of 147.60% over the same period last year; The net profit attributable to the parent company was 4.259 billion yuan, an increase of 560 over the same period last year.
In contrast, the net profit attributable to the parent company of Hunan Yuneng in 2025 was only 12. This means that the money earned in the first three quarters of this year is more than three times that of last year.
In this way, the report card of Hunan Yuneng is really "bright". However, on a quarterly basis, Hunan Yuneng achieved revenue of 14.965 billion yuan, 19.912 billion yuan and 22.631 billion yuan in the first, second and third quarters respectively; Net profit of 1.356 billion yuan, 1.554 billion yuan, 13.
Revenue all the way up, of which the third quarter was 226. But we have to be vigilant that the net profit turned down in the third quarter, down 13.
Sell more, but earn less. This can not help but make people think deeply, in the current situation of high growth of energy storage, why does this leading enterprise of lithium iron phosphate fall into the business dilemma of "increasing income without increasing profits"?
According to the disclosure, in the first three quarters of 2026, the company's cumulative sales of phosphate cathode materials were 111. Combined with the semi-annual report data, the third quarter shipments were about 450000 tons, an increase of 22% annually.
Volume is pushing up, but gross margins are falling. The gross profit margin of Hunan Yuneng in the third quarter was only 8. The company explained that this was mainly affected by the price fluctuation of lithium carbonate.
In addition, the company has a low proportion of lithium carbonate customers, and raw materials have been adopting a "high turnover" strategy. That is to say, in the downward cycle of lithium price, the lithium source bought at a high price in the early stage is included in the cost, which directly devours the profits of enterprises.
According to the calculation of Soochow Securities, the average sales price of phosphate cathode materials of Hunan Yuneng in the third quarter was about 57,000 yuan/ton, down 15% from the previous quarter; the gross profit per ton was about 4,500 yuan, down about 3,000 yuan from the previous quarter;
Reflected in the financial statements, Hunan Yuneng realized business income of 22.631 billion yuan and gross profit rate of 8.89% in the third quarter. Based on this calculation, the gross profit of the quarter was only 2.012 billion yuan, a decrease of about 7.
Hunan Yuneng recognized gains from changes in fair value in the third quarter. 3. If such non-operating gains and losses are excluded, the profitability of the company's main business will be further discounted. For the first time in
nearly 2 years! Net cash flow from operating activities of Hunan Yuneng in the third quarter 9.
It is noteworthy that this is the first time in the past two years that the company has achieved a substantial positive change in operating cash flow in a single quarter.
According to Digital New Energy DataBM, the net outflow in the first half of 2026 was as high as 17.
In addition, Hunan Yuneng made it clear in its three-quarter report that in the first three quarters of 2025 and 2026, The amount paid for the purchase of long-term assets such as fixed assets by means of endorsement and transfer of bills was RMB2.363 billion and RMB3.33 billion, respectively. According to the accounting standards, the receipts and payments by means of bills are not included in cash flow, which will lead to a decrease in both operating cash inflow and investment cash outflow.
Excluding this factor, the net cash flow from operating activities of Hunan Yuneng in the first three quarters of 2025 and 2026 is 1.024 billion yuan and 25 yuan respectively.
In this way, the operating cash flow of Hunan Yuneng may not be as bad as expected. But this data also reveals that the "cash paid for the purchase and construction of fixed assets" in the first three quarters is far more than 1.2 billion yuan shown in the statement, plus the endorsement of bills.
This means that the actual money spent by the company to expand production is much more than that shown in the cash flow statement.
However, although Hunan Yuneng realized a substantial positive cash flow in the third quarter, it lengthened the time line. In the first three quarters of this year, the net cash flow from operating activities was still a net outflow of 8.
This was mainly related to the continuous rise in accounts receivable and inventory of Hunan Yuneng in recent years .
By the end of the third quarter of 2026, the accounts receivable of Hunan Yuneng has risen from 5 billion yuan in 2023 to 11.746 billion yuan; the inventory scale has expanded from 3.629 billion yuan to 76.
According to the semi-annual report, in the first half of 2026 ", the company needs to advance funds to purchase upstream raw materials. The funding gap of Hunan Yuneng is getting bigger and bigger. Is the thigh of
"King Ning" no longer reliable? In June this year, Hunan Yuneng disclosed that Ningde Times intends to reduce its stake in Hunan Yuneng by no more than 3%.
When the news landed, Hunan Yuneng's share price plunged by more than 10% in a single day. Since then, in just over two months, Ningde Times has sold more than 17 million shares of Hunan Yuneng stock, and the shareholding ratio has dropped to less than 5%.
However, the reduction is only the withdrawal of financial investment. What really deserves vigilance is the diversion of orders. According to
public information, in 2021, Ningde Times signed several "Lithium Iron Phosphate Guarantee Agreement" and "Advance Payment Agreement" with Hunan Yuneng, which lasted for 2022-2024 and formally expired in 2025. Now, nearly two years later, the two sides have not yet signed a new long-term cooperation agreement.
On the other hand, Ningde Times turned to deepen its cooperation with Fulin Seiko, and then increased its capital to invest in its subsidiary Jiangxi Shenghua. In January this year, Ningde Times also signed a purchase agreement with Rongbai Science and Technology for more than 120 billion yuan of lithium iron phosphate. This series of actions made Hunan Yu Neng feel a strong crisis.In
the secondary market, Hunan Yuneng's share price has dropped from the highest point of 109.64 yuan/share in May this year to 46.
! On the evening of October
19, Hunan Yuneng announced that it planned to invest no more than 2 billion yuan to build a six-phase lithium iron phosphate project in Yuhu District of Xiangtan with a construction period of 12 months. It
's more than that. In July this year, Hunan Yuneng announced that it would invest 24 billion yuan in Guizhou Porcelain An Jian Mineralization Integrated New Energy Battery Material Recycling Industry Project , covering 800000 tons of lithium iron phosphate, 1 million tons of iron phosphate and its upstream industrial chain projects. Including phosphorus source, iron source, lithium carbonate processing and lithium battery recycling.
Overseas, the company has planned a Spanish base in Europe, which has been fully constructed and is expected to be put into operation in 2027, mainly radiating the European market; The Malaysia base in Southeast Asia is in the early stage of preparation. The total capacity of the two projects is 140,000 tons , with a total investment of about 19.
According to the record of investor relations activities on October 30, the annual capacity of Hunan Yuneng will exceed 1.8 million tons after its expansion this year. It is estimated that the annual effective production capacity will exceed 1.5 million tons.
But the question then arises: why does it dare to invest heavily when most of its peers choose to shrink?
It is reported that in July this year, Hunan Yuneng issued a price adjustment letter, announcing that from August 1, 2026, the price of its full range of lithium iron phosphate products will be raised by 2000 yuan/ton .
For this price adjustment, Hunan Yuneng said that since March, the rising cost of lithium iron phosphate core " such as sulfur and phosphoric acid has continuously reduced the profit margin of production and manufacturing links.
This time, Hunan Yuneng extended from lithium iron phosphate to phosphorus source, iron source, lithium carbonate processing and even battery recycling, aiming to build its own cost advantage through the development of vertical integration.
On the demand side, Hunan Yuneng said that the downstream market demand for new energy vehicles and energy storage continued to grow steadily, and the supply of high-quality and effective production capacity in the industry continued to be tight. Since July, the operating rate of the industry has been as high as 90%, especially the high-end production capacity continues to be tight. Since this year's overhaul, the company has continued to produce at full capacity, but this year's new production capacity has been unable to meet the demand for order growth of all customers.
From this point of view, Hunan Yuneng's layout is more like an early rebound in the price of lithium iron phosphate and the outbreak of demand for high-end production capacity. According to the record of investor relations activities, the company's high-end products accounted for about 65% in the first three quarters. Hunan Yuneng made it clear that the new production capacity was mainly high-end products, and the proportion of subsequent high-end products would continue to increase.
Postscript
The pace of expansion is very big, but the most difficult problem facing Hunan Yuneng is still: Where does the money come from? In August
this year, Hunan Yuneng formally submitted its H-share listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, but whether it can pass the meeting smoothly is still uncertain . In addition, it can not be ignored that since February 2026, a number of lithium iron phosphate and iron phosphate projects have been terminated, suspended or shrunk, and the industry is rapidly cooling down.
According to the forecast of industry organizations, the total nominal production capacity of lithium iron phosphate in China has exceeded 8 million tons, while the annual effective demand is only 6 million tons. In this context, Hunan Yuneng's large-scale expansion of production against the trend, superimposed on its own cash flow continued to bear pressure, whether Hunan Yuneng can survive to the next round of price increases, is still unknown.
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