CATL: 475GWh Lithium Battery Sales in 2024

As the global Lithium battery leader, CATL in 2024 again delivered an impressive report card.In 2024,CATL realized lithium-ion battery sales of 475GWh, a year-on-year increase of 21.79%.

On the evening of March 14, CATL released its 2024 annual report, and in 2024, the company realized operating income of 362.013 billion yuan, a year-on-year decline of 9.70%; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies amounted to 50.745 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.01%.

This is its first year-on-year decline in revenue since its listing in 2018, but the annual net profit for the first time stepped over the 50 billion yuan mark, a record high! With this estimate, CATL earned 139 million yuan per day in 2024, while 2023 was 121 million yuan per day.

In terms of market capitalization, as of March 14, the total market value of CATL reached 1.15 trillion yuan.

Power / energy storage battery market share of more than 30%

Last year, CATL realized lithium-ion battery sales of 475GWh, a year-on-year increase of 21.79%. Among them, power battery system sales amounted to 381GWh, up 18.85% year-on-year; energy storage battery system sales amounted to 93GWh, up 34.32% year-on-year.

This has also prompted CATL to rank first in the global power battery installed capacity for eight consecutive years, and to be the champion of energy storage battery shipments for four consecutive years, becoming the only new energy technology enterprise in the world with a market share of more than 30% in both fields of power battery and energy storage battery.

However, due to the corresponding decline in battery prices as the price of raw materials such as lithium carbonate fell, power and energy storage batteries contributed a cumulative revenue of 310.2 billion yuan, a decline of 10% year-on-year. CATL’s other two major segments as battery materials and recycling, and battery mineral resources, both showed a double-digit decline in revenue last year.

Quarterly, CATL has seven consecutive quarters of net profit of more than 10 billion yuan, last year’s fourth quarter of 14.7 billion yuan of profitability also hit a single-quarter record high. Super profitability, also let CATL have the courage to give shareholders about 20 billion yuan of dividend checks in this year again .

Since its listing, CATL has continued to improve shareholder returns, with dividend ratios of 50% for two consecutive years in 2023 and 2024, and cumulative dividends and buybacks amounting to nearly 60 billion yuan.

Under the background of industry overcapacity and low price competition, CATL can still continue its ultra-high net profit growth, which stems from its cost control ability as well as technology premium.

In 2024, CATL’ R&D investment reached another record high of 18.6 billion yuan, and its cumulative R&D investment in the past decade exceeded 70 billion yuan. Strong operating cash flow (about 97 billion yuan for the year) and more than 300 billion yuan of currency funds at the end of the period provide a solid financial guarantee for its continued high-intensity R&D investment and high-quality capacity construction, the company said.

Meanwhile, CATL’ operating costs last year amounted to 303.3 billion yuan, down 13.5 percent year-on-year, higher than the decline in revenue. Its gross profit margin reached 24.44%, up 1.5 percentage points from 2023.

Among them, the gross profit margin of power battery and energy storage battery segment was 23.94% and 26.84% respectively; the gross profit margin of battery materials and recycling segment was 10.51%; and the gross profit margin of battery mineral resources segment was 8.53%.

New lithium battery products are emerging

On the product side, in the passenger car segment, CATL launched a number of innovative lithium battery products. The energy density of the Shenxing Plus battery system exceeds 200Wh/kg, and it is the world’s first lithium iron phosphate battery with 1000km range and 4C supercharging characteristics. In addition, the company also launched a new generation of Qilin high-power batteries, with a discharge power of more than 1,300kW, helping new energy vehicles to achieve zero 100 acceleration in less than 2 seconds. Qilin batteries focus on the high-end passenger car market, while Shenxing batteries focus on cost-effective passenger cars. The high-end product lines represented by Qilin and Shenxing batteries continue to account for a higher proportion of CATL’s sales, and are also significantly improving CATL’s profitability.

In the commercial vehicle segment, CATL has launched a number of long-life battery products for different application scenarios. Tianxing L-Supercharged and Tianxing L-Long Endurance batteries are suitable for high timeliness logistics scenarios, with a service life of up to 8 years and 800,000 kilometers; the service life of Tianxing bus version of batteries is up to 15 years and 1.5 million kilometers; and Tianxing batteries for heavy-duty commercial vehicles are suitable for heavy-duty trucks scenarios, with a service life of up to 15 years and 3 million kilometers.

In the field of energy storage, CATL released the world’s first 5-year zero-decay, single-unit 6.25MWh Tianheng energy storage system, which improves energy density per unit area by 30% and reduces footprint by 20% compared with the previous generation of products, and further enhances the profitability of energy storage projects.

In addition, the company also launched the PU100 energy storage product, which supports 6C discharge, meets the demand for emergency backup power for 10-15 minutes, and has the characteristics of high safety, high power, easy maintenance, etc., and continues to help data center energy management.

From January to March 2025, CATL signed orders frequently at home and abroad. Based on the long-term favorable demand of the energy storage market, it is expected that CATL will continue to maintain high growth in energy storage battery shipments this year.

In the first quarter of 2025, the lithium battery market showed an off-season situation, however the company’s production schedule increased by nearly 50% year-on-year. The management of CATL also mentioned that the production schedule in January-February is still very full. With continued growth in production capacity and strengthened cost control, CATL is still expected to continue its strong profitability this year.