China's CATL sees slowest profit growth in six years

BEIJING (Reuters) -CATL reported 15% growth in 2024 net profit, the slowest pace in six years, as a prolonged price war in China's electric vehicle market put pressure on the Chinese EV battery giant.

Net profit rose 15% to 50.7 billion yuan ($7.01 billion), according to a stock filing on Friday, versus the company's forecast of 11.1%-20.1% growth. Revenue came in at 362 billion yuan, down 9.7%, the first annual revenue fall since CATL started releasing its operating figures in 2015.

Adjusted product prices for declining costs of raw materials such as lithium carbonate resulted in a fall in operating income despite rising sales volume, the company said in January.

Fourth-quarter net profit was up 13.6% year-on-year to 14.7 billion yuan, slowing from 26% growth in the third quarter, while revenue shrank by 3.1% to 103 billion yuan, narrowing from a 12.5% slide in the previous quarter and the fifth consecutive quarterly decline.

A prolonged price war in China has pressured EV makers to lower costs of components, forcing CATL to lower battery prices to defend its market share. 

This was partly offset by a decline in battery material costs for CATL, and the company saw a 17.6% slide in the cost of power battery business over last year, faster than a 11.3% fall in revenue from the biggest source of its revenue.

CATL further extended its lead in the global market of batteries for both EVs and energy storage systems with a 38% share, up from 36% in 2023, according to SNE Research. BYD held the second place with 15% in both 2023 and 2024, while LGES saw its share dip to 10% from 13%.

CATL saw faster growth in deliveries of batteries for energy storage systems, which accounted for 22.4% of its total battery shipments in 2024 compared to 19.4% in 2023, data from SNE Research showed.      

The EV battery specialist has been pushing beyond batteries, unveiling a new EV chassis in December and envisioning a pivot to power grids.

Additionally, it's pursuing investments abroad, including a 7.3 billion euro battery plant in Hungary to supply the likes of Mercedes-Benz and BMW, along with a new jointly-owned battery plant with Stellantis in Spain.

The company filed an application last month for a listing in Hong Kong that will partially fund its Hungarian plant, in a deal expected to raise at least $5 billion.

($1 = 7.2324 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Qiaoyi Li, Zhang Yan and Brenda Goh; editing by David Evans and Mark Potter)