Tianqi Lithium’s Profits Soar by 580%!

Tianqi Lithium: Emerging from Its Darkest Hour! In the first three quarters of 2025, Tianqi Lithium achieved revenue of RMB 7.397 billion and net profit of RMB 180 million—a staggering 103.16% year-on-year increase—recovering from a massive RMB 7.9 billion net loss in 2024. During the same period, Tianqi Lithium’s gross margin stood at 38.98%, outperforming peers such as Ganfeng Lithium and Yongshan Lithium, and ranking first among all minor metal companies. Typically, gross margin serves as a company’s first line of defense against risk; strong profitability is thus a critical prerequisite for competitiveness within the industry. Yet amid the same lithium sector, why does Tianqi Lithium’s gross margin stand head and shoulders above the rest? What strategic secrets underpin this exceptional performance? Strategic M&A: Securing World-Class Lithium Resources Tianqi Lithium’s high gross margin stems directly from its control over globally premier lithium resources. Competition in the lithium carbonate industry is, at its core, a contest for upstream lithium ore resources. Today, Tianqi Lithium holds significant lithium assets across four key locations—most notably Australia’s Greenbushes Mine and Chile’s Salar de Atacama salt lake. Both of these world-class assets were acquired through strategic mergers and acquisitions. In 2008, Tianqi Lithium’s predecessor—Shehong Lithium—was merely a lithium salt processing plant with annual capacity under 5,000 tons, trapped between constrained upstream resource access and narrow downstream markets. At that time, Talison Lithium—the company supplying it with spodumene concentrate—held the world’s largest and highest-grade lithium spodumene deposit at Greenbushes. That mine once supplied 65% of global lithium ore output and accounted for 35% of total global lithium resources. As of end-2024, Greenbushes’ total mineral resource stood at 440 million tonnes, with an estimated 16 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE). In 2012, North American giant Rockwood planned to acquire Talison. Had the deal gone through, Tianqi Lithium would have lost its stable raw material supply—and faced potential marginalization by industry giants. At the time, Tianqi Lithium had total assets under RMB 1.6 billion and annual net profit below RMB 50 million. Yet it made its first bold “bet”: with support from China Investment Corporation (CIC), Tianqi Group successfully acquired 100% equity of Talison’s parent company in 2013. Post-acquisition, Tianqi Lithium signed a long-term off-take agreement with Talison: Talison prioritized lithium concentrate supply to Tianqi; in return, Tianqi committed to guaranteed purchase volumes, securing Talison’s cash flow. This gamble paid off handsomely: Greenbushes boasts an average lithium grade of 1.9%, and its lithium concentrate production cost stands at just AUD 357 per tonne—far below the industry average. After acquiring Talison, Tianqi Lithium set its sights on Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SQM). In 2018, Tianqi Lithium joined a Chinese investment consortium to acquire a 23.77% stake in SQM for USD 4.066 billion, becoming its second-largest shareholder. SQM is the world’s largest brine-based lithium producer, holding the globe’s largest and highest-grade lithium brine resources at Salar de Atacama—and operating across more than 20 countries, with products sold in over 110 nations and regions. This acquisition enabled Tianqi Lithium to establish a world-leading dual-resource footprint—“Australian hard-rock lithium + South American brine”—and officially ascend into the top tier of global lithium producers. Today, Tianqi Lithium controls four core lithium resources: Australia’s Greenbushes Mine, Sichuan’s Cuola Mine, Chile’s Salar de Atacama, and Tibet’s Zabuye Salt Lake—achieving 100% self-sufficiency in lithium resources.

Bet Right on Global Expansion, Secures Investment from the 'Photovoltaic Patriarch'—Wota Energy Targets STAR Market Listing | In-depth Report by 36Kr

In 2012, Yuan Hongliang gave up his job in Germany and returned to China with two friends to launch Wota Energy in Nantong, Jiangsu Province. With just three people on its founding team, the company embarked on its entrepreneurial journey—developing residential energy storage systems tailored for integrated photovoltaic (PV) and storage applications. At the time, China’s new-energy projects were rapidly expanding nationwide—yet ‘energy storage’ remained a novel concept. Beyond a handful of demonstration projects, domestic market demand was virtually nonexistent. Overseas markets presented a different picture: many communities were geographically dispersed and grid infrastructure lacked coordination—especially vulnerable during extreme weather events, which frequently triggered large-scale blackouts. Flexible, efficient residential energy storage systems thus emerged as a promising solution. From an economic perspective, higher electricity tariffs generally translate into stronger returns on energy storage products. Electricity pricing overseas is far more market-driven—particularly in Germany, Australia, and the United States—where both residential and commercial tariffs significantly exceed those in China. This reality, shaped by Yuan’s years living abroad, sparked fresh insights. Thus, whether assessed by renewable energy generation needs or economic viability, entering overseas markets first was clearly the optimal strategy. Accordingly, newly founded Wota Energy targeted international markets from day one. Later, in interviews, Yuan Hongliang remarked: “2012 was the right timing—too early, and we wouldn’t survive until the market truly took off; too late, and our room to grow would be squeezed out by competitors.” History proved this decision correct. Within three years of its founding, Wota Energy established wholly owned subsidiaries in Frankfurt, Germany and Sydney, Australia. In 2015—the same year it launched its Australian subsidiary—Wota Energy already commanded an 18% share of the Australian residential storage market. In 2018, South Australia’s state government announced Wota Energy as one of only two designated residential energy storage system suppliers—and awarded it government subsidies. At the time, nearly one in three South Australian households had installed solar PV systems. Following the government’s ‘Home Battery Scheme’, 40,000 households received subsidized battery installations. Driven by both policy incentives and robust market demand, Wota Energy solidified its brand leadership in Australia. When asked about its market-entry logic, founder Yuan Hongliang summarized three criteria: first, local retail electricity prices; second, regional solar irradiance conditions; third, grid reliability and stability. Applying these three metrics allows prediction of where PV-plus-storage technology will gain traction first. According to publicly available corporate information, Wota Energy has since established ten overseas subsidiaries—in Germany, Australia, Italy, South Korea, the UK, Singapore, and the United States—and expanded operations to 83 countries and regions. Residential energy storage demand overseas has consistently outpaced China’s. Especially over the past two years, amid Europe’s energy crisis and surging electricity prices, residential PV-plus-storage systems have reignited tremendous enthusiasm across the Atlantic. The European Photovoltaic Industry Association (SolarPower Europe) estimates that in 2022, over one million European households used PV-plus-storage systems for power supply—with annual installation capacity growth exceeding 70%.

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