Lithium is waking up and SQM is profiting the most from it. Is further growth ahead for the stock?
The price of lithium fell by nearly ninety percent over a few years, hit bottom, and then shot back up sharply. Chilean SQM, one of the world’s largest miners, is on this roller coaster, and its latest results show both ends of the rope at once. Revenue rose 137 percent, profit 353 percent, lithium sales hit a record. The catch is that the record is half driven by a price recovery the company does not control, and that its most valuable mine is now controlled by the Chilean state.
Key points
In the second quarter of 2026, SQM lifted revenue 137 percent to $2.47 billion, and earnings per share of $2.31 beat the $1.91 estimate.
For the first half, net profit jumped 353 percent to $1.02 billion, driven by record lithium sales of over 84 thousand tonnes and a price recovery.
The lithium price has meanwhile returned from a long slump, with lithium carbonate jumping from 59 thousand to about 150 thousand yuan per tonne. How much of that will last, no one knows.
The company’s most valuable asset, the Atacama salt flat mine, is now controlled by the Chilean state through a joint venture with Codelco, where it holds 50 percent plus one share.
In just the half-year, SQM paid the Chilean state over $1.6 billion in taxes and fees, showing how large a share of profit the state takes.
Few commodities have had such a ride as lithium in recent years. First it became a star of the energy transition, its price shot to dizzying heights, and miners were drowning in money. Then came a hard fall, with the price dropping nearly ninety percent as supply outpaced demand and the market became oversupplied. Then in 2026 came a turnaround, with the price rising again, driven by electric vehicle hunger and unexpectedly strong demand for batteries for energy storage in data centers for artificial intelligence. Chilean SQM, one of the world’s largest and cheapest lithium miners, is riding exactly this wave.
The company’s latest results look dazzling and precisely reflect that turnaround. In the second quarter of 2026, revenue rose 137 percent, earnings per share beat expectations, and lithium sales hit a record of over 84 thousand tonnes. For the whole first half, net profit more than quadrupled. At first glance, this is a story of a miner in full strength, reaping the benefits of a growing market and its own discipline.
Under the surface, however, it is more complicated, and that is what makes the story interesting. The record numbers were not produced only by SQM’s record volume, but largely by a recovery in the lithium price, which the company does not control and which is notorious for its unpredictability. On top of that, there is something that sets SQM apart from most miners. Its most valuable asset, the mine in the famous Atacama salt flat, is no longer run by the company alone, but by a joint venture with Chilean state giant Codelco, in which the state holds control. And it takes a huge share of every kilo mined.