Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited: earning 200 million yuan per day, with dividends of 36.1 billion yuan

On March 9, CATL announced its 2025 financial report: revenue of 423.7 billion yuan, up 17% year-over-year; net profit attributable to shareholders of 72.2 billion yuan, a 42% increase year-over-year. In short: volume increased, profits grew even faster, but spending also became more aggressive. Why did profits rise so quickly? The main reason is cost reduction. Over the past two years, the prices of core raw materials like lithium carbonate have significantly fallen, leading CATL’s overall gross margin to improve to 26.3% in 2025, driven by scale effects. Meanwhile, the company holds a large amount of cash, earning interest income of 10.6 billion yuan. This “passive income” is also a secondary reason why net profit growth outpaced revenue growth. CATL’s net profit margin rose from 11% in 2023 to 17% in 2025. CATL’s revenue sources are relatively concentrated: power batteries contribute 74.7% of revenue, energy storage batteries contribute 14.7%, together accounting for nearly 90%. According to SNE Research, CATL’s global market share in power batteries increased by 1.2 percentage points to 39.2%, maintaining the top position worldwide for nine consecutive years, with a domestic market share of 43.42% and overseas market share surpassing 30% for the first time. However, behind the market share figures, there is a set of data worth noting: the gross profit margin of power batteries is 23.8%, a slight decrease of 0.1 percentage points year-over-year. Volume increased, but gross margin did not, indicating ongoing price competition pressure. Energy storage batteries have higher gross margins than power batteries, but their revenue growth is slower, mainly because the average price of energy storage systems is declining—volume is up, but unit price is down. Where did CATL’s money go? In 2025, its net cash outflow from investing activities reached 94.4 billion yuan, nearly doubling compared to the previous year. The main expenditures include: capacity expansion—spending 42.3 billion yuan on fixed assets, a 36% increase, with multiple domestic and international production bases advancing simultaneously, and under-construction capacity reaching 321 GWh; purchasing financial products—investment expenditure of 57.5 billion yuan, up 159%. R&D investment was 22.1 billion yuan, a 19% increase, with R&D expenses accounting for 5.23%, and 22,901 R&D personnel, a 12.6% increase year-over-year. This scale of investment is among the high levels in global manufacturing companies. Regarding shareholder returns, CATL’s total dividends (including interim dividends) in 2025 amounted to approximately 36.1 billion yuan. Additionally, the company launched a share repurchase plan in April 2025 with a total amount not less than 4 billion yuan, and by the end of the year, the total repurchased shares reached 4.386 billion yuan. In the coming years, as overseas factories come online and competitors accelerate their pace, whether CATL can maintain its current profit margins while preserving market share remains a key focus of external attention. (Planning: Jin Yufan, Illustration: Li Yuhui)