Over 30 billion! CATL's net profit in the first three quarters exceeded that of last year

CATL (300750.SZ) had a net profit of more than 30 billion yuan in the first three quarters.

On the evening of October 19, CATL disclosed that due to the growth of business scale, revenue in the first three quarters of this year increased by 40.1% year-on-year to 294.6 billion yuan. The net profit in the same period reached 31.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 77.05%, which has exceeded the 30.7 billion yuan of last year.

CATL's business consists of four major segments: power batteries, energy storage batteries, battery materials and recycling, and battery mineral resources. Among them, power batteries are the main business segment, which contributed 73% of the company's revenue in the first half of the year.

According to the latest data from the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, from January to September, the cumulative installed capacity of CATL's power batteries reached 109.3 GWh, with a domestic market share of 42.75%, still ranking first. However, the market share fell to 39.41% in September, a 17-month low.

From a global perspective, the latest data from South Korean research institute SNE Research shows that in the global market excluding China, CATL has a cumulative installed capacity of 54.7 GWh of power batteries from January to August this year, ranking second in the world, with a growth rate of 111.1%. Its market share of 27.7 percent is less than a percentage point behind the top-ranked LG Energy Solution, compared with 7.5 percent in the same period last year.

According to SNE, the Hyundai Kona and Kia Ray will also be equipped with CATL batteries in the future, and their market share in the non-Chinese market is expected to further expand. CATL once mentioned in its semi-annual report that the company's overseas customers in the field of power batteries include Tesla, BMW, Daimler, etc., and in China, it has customers of leading car companies such as SAIC, NIO, and Ideal.

In the third quarter of this year, CATL achieved revenue of 105.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.28%, and the growth rate hit a three-year low. The company's net profit in the third quarter was 10.4 billion yuan, an increase of 10.66% year-on-year, but a decrease of more than 4 percentage points from the previous quarter.

CATL's gross profit margin in the third quarter was 22.4%, a slight increase from the previous quarter, and the company's gross profit margin has maintained growth for three consecutive quarters since the beginning of this year.

From January to September, CATL's R&D expenses reached 14.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 40.65%. Since the beginning of this year, CATL has achieved many breakthroughs in power battery and energy storage battery technology.

In August, it launched the world's first lithium iron phosphate 4C super-rechargeable battery, named Shenxing super-rechargeable battery. The battery can be charged in 10 minutes, has a range of 400 kilometers, has an ultra-long range of 700 kilometers, and can achieve fast charging in all temperature ranges.

C refers to the capacity rate of the battery to charge and discharge, and 1C means that the battery can be fully charged in 1 hour. The 4C means that the battery is able to be fully charged in a quarter of an hour, or 15 minutes.

Before the release of Shenxing super-rechargeable batteries, 4C fast-charging batteries were mainly ternary batteries, which had the problem of high price. At present, there are only a few new energy models in China that have achieved 4C charging, such as Xiaopeng G9, all of which use ternary batteries, and the price is generally more than 400,000 yuan.

CATL's lithium iron phosphate 4C ultra-rechargeable battery effectively solves the cost problem. Lithium iron phosphate and ternary batteries are the two mainstream technical routes of lithium batteries, and the former has obvious cost advantages over the latter. At present, AVATAR, Nezha Automobile, Chery, and Jihu have confirmed that they will be equipped with this battery.

CATL's stock price has been sluggish recently, with a cumulative decline of more than 23% in the past two months. As of the close of trading on October 19, CATL's share price fell 1.93% to close at 183.7 yuan, with a market value of 803.4 billion yuan.