CATL’s 2025 Annual Report Shows Record Profit as Global Battery Share Climbs

Dek: CATL said 2025 revenue rose to RMB 423.70 billion and net profit attributable to shareholders reached RMB 72.20 billion. Just as important, SNE Research data cited by the company and local media showed its global power-battery share climbed to 39.2%, while energy storage and overseas expansion are increasingly shaping the next leg of the story.

When CATL publishes a strong earnings report, the headline is never only about one company. The battery giant sits so close to the center of the global electric-vehicle supply chain that its annual numbers also act as a readout on where China’s battery industry is widening its lead and where the next competition is moving.

According to CATL’s 2025 annual report and March 9 coverage from Sina Finance / CLS and National Business Daily (NBD), the company delivered another record year. CATL said 2025 revenue reached RMB 423.70 billion, up 17.04% year over year, while net profit attributable to shareholders rose to RMB 72.20 billion, up 42.28%. It also reported operating cash flow of RMB 133.22 billion and R&D spending of RMB 22.1 billion.

Those are not just big-company numbers. They suggest CATL is still combining scale, cash generation, and technology spending at a level few battery peers can currently match.

The bigger strategic point, however, is what sits behind the income statement. CATL said its lithium-battery sales volume reached 661 GWh in 2025, up 39%. SNE Research data cited in the annual report and local media showed the company’s global power-battery usage share rose to 39.2%, extending its No. 1 ranking for a ninth straight year. At the same time, local media reported that CATL’s global energy-storage battery shipment share reached 30.4%, while the company said it had remained No. 1 in that segment for a fifth consecutive year.

That is why the cleanest read on this report is not simply that CATL made more money. It is that the company is widening its battery lead while building a stronger second growth pillar in energy storage and laying more groundwork overseas.

What the 2025 numbers actually say

The financial scorecard is straightforward.

CATL’s annual report showed revenue of RMB 423.70 billion in 2025, compared with RMB 362.01 billion a year earlier. Net profit attributable to shareholders rose from RMB 50.74 billion to RMB 72.20 billion. Operating cash flow climbed to RMB 133.22 billion, and the company continued to spend heavily on technology, with R&D investment of RMB 22.1 billion for the year.

Local media also highlighted CATL’s liquidity position. NBD reported that the company ended the year with roughly RMB 392.5 billion in cash and trading financial assets combined. That matters because CATL is not just defending market share in a mature battery business. It is also funding capacity build-outs, overseas projects, new chemistry platforms, and adjacent application areas that may take years to scale.

Shareholder returns were another signal of confidence. CATL proposed a cash dividend of RMB 69.57 per 10 shares, subject to shareholder approval. Local media said CATL’s total 2025 cash dividends would reach about RMB 36.1 billion, or roughly 50% of attributable net profit.

Taken together, the picture is of a company that is not only growing, but doing so with unusually strong internal financing capacity.

Power batteries remain the core engine

For all the discussion around storage, globalization, and new applications, the heart of the CATL story is still its position in power batteries.

The company said its 2025 lithium-battery sales volume reached 661 GWh, up 39% year over year. More importantly for international readers, SNE Research data cited by CATL and local media showed its global power-battery usage share climbed to 39.2%, up 1.2 percentage points from the prior year. That kept CATL in the global top spot for the ninth consecutive year, according to the report.

That 39.2% figure matters because it shows CATL is not merely defending leadership in a slowing or fragmented market. It is still widening the gap from an already dominant base. Local media also said CATL’s share in overseas power-battery markets rose to 30%, suggesting that the company’s reach outside China is becoming more meaningful, not less.

From an industry perspective, this is the part of the report that should get the most attention. A battery supplier with nearly two-fifths of the global market has enormous influence over pricing power, chemistry rollout, customer relationships, and scale economics. Even modest share gains at that size can reshape the competitive environment for automakers and rival cell makers alike.

Energy storage is becoming harder to treat as a side business

If power batteries remain CATL’s anchor, energy storage increasingly looks like the company’s next major growth platform.

NBD, citing SNE Research, reported that CATL’s global energy-storage battery shipment share reached 30.4% in 2025, keeping the company in the No. 1 position for a fifth straight year. CATL’s annual report separately said its energy-storage battery shipments had ranked first globally for five consecutive years.

That matters because storage is not just a volume add-on to EV batteries. It is tied to a different demand cycle: grid balancing, renewable integration, data-center power systems, industrial backup, and utility-scale deployment. In other words, it gives CATL a way to grow alongside the build-out of power infrastructure, not only passenger-vehicle demand.

The annual report and local media coverage both pointed to that broadening footprint. NBD said CATL had around 2,300 cumulative applied storage projects globally. The company also used the report to emphasize continued leadership in storage products and system solutions.

The strongest takeaway is not that storage will suddenly overtake EV batteries. It is that CATL now has a second battery business with real global scale, category leadership, and its own demand drivers. That makes the company less dependent on any single EV pricing cycle.

That broader energy-and-infrastructure race also shows up in BYD Says Flash Charging and Battery Swaps Can Coexist in China's EV Refueling Race, where the competitive edge likewise comes from system-level energy solutions rather than one isolated battery headline.

Overseas expansion looks more important — but it should still be read carefully

The next part of the story is global capacity and supply-chain expansion.

According to NBD, CATL had 772 GWh of production capacity by the end of 2025 and 321 GWh under construction. The same report said the company’s Hungary plant and Indonesia battery-industry-chain projects are advancing steadily.

This is where attribution matters. Those project updates should be read as company-stated progress and source-reported developments, not as already realized profit streams on the same scale as 2025 battery sales. The strategic signal is clear: CATL is still building the manufacturing and supply-chain footprint needed to support customers outside China and to deepen control over key nodes of the battery value chain.

A similar scale-first logic appears in WeRide and Geely’s Farizon Plan 2,000 Robotaxi GXRs by 2026, where execution capacity and industrial rollout matter more than a single demonstration milestone.

That matters especially in Europe and Southeast Asia, where automakers and policymakers are both paying closer attention to local supply resilience, tariffs, and industrial policy. CATL’s overseas push is not simply a geographic diversification move. It is part of a larger effort to stay indispensable as battery supply chains become more politically contested.

Aviation and low-altitude remain future-facing, not current profit centers

One area where the story can easily get overstated is aviation and low-altitude applications.

Local media said CATL sees aviation / low-altitude and globalization as future focus areas. NBD reported that CATL developed a power battery for a cargo aircraft version used by an affiliated company under AutoFlight / Fengfei Aviation, and that the battery had passed a Civil Aviation Administration of China manufacturing conformity review. The report also said CATL had obtained AS9100D aviation quality-system certification.

Those details matter because they show CATL wants to participate in future electric-aircraft and low-altitude ecosystems. But they should not be rewritten as evidence that aviation is already a meaningful revenue contributor on the scale of EV or storage batteries.

The 2025 earnings story is still fundamentally a battery story: stronger financial performance, larger installed scale, and broader end-market reach. Aviation and low-altitude are better understood as option value and strategic signaling for now.

Why global readers should care

CATL’s annual report is relevant well beyond China because it offers a snapshot of how the global battery hierarchy is evolving.

First, the company is still growing from a huge base. Revenue, profit, cash flow, and sales volume all moved higher in the same year. Second, its 39.2% global power-battery share suggests that market leadership is consolidating rather than fragmenting. Third, storage is giving CATL a wider platform that connects it to grid infrastructure and energy-transition spending, not just auto demand.

That combination is what makes CATL especially hard to dislodge. The same system-level competition is also visible in Huawei-Backed Qijing Names Its First Model GT7 Ahead of a March 17 Debut, where software, hardware, and supply-chain depth are increasingly being bundled into the product story itself. A rival does not just need a better battery cell. It needs a comparable manufacturing system, customer base, financing capacity, R&D engine, and increasingly a multi-market business spanning EVs, storage, and overseas industrial build-out.

For global automakers, utilities, and battery competitors, this is the part of the report that matters most: CATL is not acting like a mature incumbent defending a peak position. It is still investing as if the next competitive cycle is only beginning.

Bottom line

CATL’s 2025 annual report was strong on the headline numbers, but the more important signal is structural.

The company reported RMB 423.70 billion in revenue, RMB 72.20 billion in attributable net profit, RMB 133.22 billion in operating cash flow, RMB 22.1 billion in R&D investment, and 661 GWh in battery sales. SNE Research data cited by the company and local media showed its global power-battery share climbed to 39.2%, while local media put its energy-storage battery shipment share at 30.4%.

That adds up to more than a good year. It suggests CATL is still widening its leadership in core power batteries, while storage and overseas build-out are becoming the clearest candidates for the next stage of growth. Just keep the boundary lines clear: Hungary, Indonesia, and low-altitude aviation point to future direction, not fully realized 2025 earnings engines.