CATL net profit hits record US$10.4bn as Q4 smashes forecasts

CATL has reported its full-year results for 2025, showcasing a record-breaking net profit of CN¥72.2bn (US$10.4bn) for 2025—a 42.3% increase and the fastest annual growth in three years. Fourth-quarter profit rose 57.1% year-on-year to CN¥23.2bn, marking the largest quarterly gain in two and a half years against a substantially more consensus forecast of 40.9%.

Revenue for the full year reached CN¥423.7bn, up 17%, with electric vehicle (EV) batteries accounting for 74.7% of sales. Energy storage (ESS) battery revenue grew 9% to CN¥62.4bn, contributing 14.7% of total revenue. While this is substantially more modest than the EV business, ESS did boast a gross margin of 26.7%, outperforming 23.8% for EVs.

CATL also appears to have expanded its dominance of the global EV battery market, widening its share to 39.2% in 2025 from 38% the prior year, according to data from SNE Research. The three largest South Korean battery makers—LG Energy Solution, SK On, and Samsung SDI respectively—saw their cumulative share fall 10.4% in January 2026, as US policy shifts and automaker EV pullbacks eroded their core market.

The Korean battery sector’s deterioration and CATL’s simultaneous share gain are probably not unrelated. As US-facing supply chains contract—indeed, most battery players with a manufacturing presence in the country are pivoting towards ESS—global automakers are becoming increasingly reliant on Chinese suppliers with lower cost bases. CATL’s overseas revenue holding at over 30% of the total, at a gross margin of 31.4% versus 24% domestically, suggests the international business is not just growing but structurally more profitable.

CATL’s results arrive as competitive pressure builds from BYD, whose recently-unveiled second generation Blade Battery promises a charge from 10-97% in just nine minutes. The technology could offer BYD a much-needed win: its global battery market share slipped from 16.9% to 16.4% in 2025, and the automaker is simultaneously contending with six consecutive months of falling domestic sales. CATL’s market capitalisation now exceeds BYD’s by approximately US$120bn, a gap that had been negligible as recently as mid-2025.

Despite an overall successful year for CATL, two numbers do cut against the positive narrative. Gross margins in both the EV battery and ESS divisions slipped slightly—by 0.1% and 0.13% respectively—largely aas a result of input cost pressure and price competition. The August suspension of production at CATL’s Jianxiawo lithium mine following a licensing dispute pushed up lithium prices and weighed on margins; production is expected to resume in June.