Analyst Note
| Vincent Sun |Narrow-moat Tianqi reported first-quarter net profit growth of 46% year over year to CNY 4.9 billion, accounting for 26% of our full-year estimate. Despite first-quarter average lithium prices plunging more than 20% from a record fourth quarter last year, gross margin still managed to gain 5 percentage points from last quarter to 89.8%, demonstrating the resilient margin profile of its upstream lithium mining business and the value of its self-sufficiency in lithium resource supply.