SHANGHAI: Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL) full-year profit surged as the world's largest maker of electric-vehicle batteries weathers a brutal price war in China by leveraging its dominance in energy storage and cell technology.
Net income jumped 42% in 2025 from a year earlier to 72.2 billion yuan (RM41bil), ahead of estimates, the Chinese company said Monday.
Revenue rose 17% as more overseas shipments and a burgeoning energy-storage business helped offset cooling demand from China's EV market.
The results solidify CATL's position as an anchor of the global green energy transition at a time of growing uncertainty for battery makers.
The sharper-than-expected slowdown in EV demand is driving some of the industry's biggest names toward energy storage systems - a sector that's booming due to the growing integration of renewable energy into power grids and surging demand from AI data centres.
That also highlights the diverging trajectories of CATL and BYD Co, the world's biggest EV maker that also produces batteries.
The latter's reliance on the EV market has hammered its bottom line and it's expected to report its worst quarterly sales decline in five years later this month as intense domestic competition and sluggish car sales in China hurt demand.
International expansion remains a core pillar of CATL's growth ambitions, despite the headwinds it faces from geopolitics.
The company is doubling down on its licensing model to bypass trade barriers in the US and Europe, attempting to monetise its research and development without the political risk that comes with owning physical assets.
In Europe, the ramp up of its multibillion-euro plant in Hungary is being watched closely as a test of CATL's ability to manage high labor costs and local regulations.
CATL is also banking on new technologies to keep driving demand, including the commercial roll-out of its second-generation sodium-ion batteries.
The company announced with Chongqing Changan Automobile Co in February that the first mass-produced passenger car equipped with sodium-ion batteries will reach the market by mid-2026.
It's also aggressively scaling up its battery-swapping ecosystem, lowering the upfront purchase price of EVs and offering a solution to the grid strain that BYD's megawatt-level charging could trigger in dense urban areas.
BYD, CATL's biggest competitor, earlier this month unveiled more powerful batteries and faster charging capabilities in a push to reignite its growth.
