CATL released its financial report for the third quarter of 2024 on October 18th. This year, CATL has continued to launch innovative products such as Shenxing PLUS and TENER (Tianheng), and has deepened cooperation with customers, achieving steady business growth. In the first three quarters, the operating income was 259.045 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 12.09%; the net profit was 36.001 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.59%; the basic earnings per share were 8.1894 yuan per share. Among them, the operating income in the third quarter was 92.278 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 12.48%, and the net profit was 13.136 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.97%. The company's operating cash flow was strong, reaching 67.4 billion yuan.
During the reporting period, CATL's market share of power batteries both globally and domestically continued to increase steadily. In the global market, according to industry statistics, CATL's global market share of EV batteries was 37.1% from January to August 2024, an increase of 1.6 percentage points year-on-year; among them, the global commercial EV battery share was 64.9%, an increase of 4.6 percentage points year-on-year, remaining in the first place. CATL has also recently launched the overseas commercial EV battery brand CATL TECTRANS, and its market share in the commercial EV battery market is expected to further increase. In the domestic market in China, the company's domestic market share of EV batteries was 45.9% from January to September 2024, an increase of 3.1 percentage points year-on-year.
In the first three quarters, CATL's overall battery sales approached 330GWh, with sales in the third quarter increasing by more than 15% compared to the second quarter, and energy storage sector accounting for more than 20%.
Specifically in business areas, the new product of the Shenxing Qilin battery launched by CATL has been installed on more than 30 models in mass production, with the delivery proportion of the Shenxing Qilin battery exceeding 30%, and it is expected that more than 70% of the batteries will be fast-charging products by 2025.
Energy storage batteries (ESS) have a higher growth rate in both domestic and foreign markets than EV projects. During the reporting period, CATL's energy storage battery delivery exceeded 30 GWh, with half from overseas and half from domestic, among which domestic energy storage product shipments were mainly battery cells, while more than half of the overseas delivery were energy storage packs and cabinet products. In April of this year, CATL launched the "TENER" new energy storage product, but it still needs a certain introduction time to contribute to profits.
In terms of production lines, CATL's production line scheduling in the third quarter was very full, and it is expected to be even fuller in the fourth quarter. In the third quarter, CATL continued to increase fixed asset investment, and the production line capacity arrangement was flexible, allowing for the coordination of power and energy storage products.
In terms of the overseas market, especially the European market, with new models in Europe being launched in 2025, CATL expects the European car market to continue to grow in 2025. There is no delay in orders from European customers cooperating with CATL, and the demand in the European market in 2025 is expected to be better than in 2024.
The capacity ramp-up at CATL's battery factory in Germany has been relatively smooth, but the ramp-up speed is slower than that in China, and it is expected to achieve a break-even point within the year. The equipment for the first phase of the battery factory project in Hungary has been gradually installed, and it is planned to start production in the second half of 2025, with the comprehensive cost being lower than that of the German factory. In addition to building its own factories, CATL will also adopt the same LRS (License Loyalty Service) cooperation model in Europe as with Ford, GM and Tesla in the US market. However, CATL did not disclose specific information about the battery joint venture with Stellantis to build a factory in Europe.
CATL expects the demand for ternary batteries in the European market to remain higher than that for lithium iron phosphate batteries. However, the company is also working on a new manganese-based M3P product, which combines the advantages of lithium iron phosphate and ternary batteries, to meet the diverse needs of the European market.
