CATL posted $10.4 billion in net profit last year and I barely see it discussed here

I've been following the EV battery space for a while and CATL's 2025 annual report came out on March 9 with numbers that genuinely surprised me. Revenue hit 423.7 billion yuan (roughly $61.4 billion), up 17% year over year. Net profit reached 72.2 billion yuan ($10.4 billion), a 42% increase. They shipped 661 GWh of batteries in 2025, up 39%, and according to SNE Research their global power battery market share climbed to 39.2%. That's nine consecutive years at number one worldwide.

The number that stood out most to me was contract liabilities. That figure jumped 77% to 49.2 billion yuan by year end, up from 27.8 billion at the end of 2024. Contract liabilities are essentially advance payments from customers locking in future supply, so a spike that large signals very strong order visibility heading into 2026. Operating cash flow was also enormous at 133.2 billion yuan, about 1.8 times their net profit. They proposed a dividend of 69.57 yuan per 10 shares, totaling roughly 31.5 billion yuan, continuing a policy of returning 50% of net profit to shareholders for three consecutive years. A shares rose over 6% the day after the report.

On the expansion side, two developments stand out. First, their Hungary gigafactory in Debrecen. CATL invested €7.3 billion into this site and it is set to begin cell production in early 2026. The initial 40 GWh of annual capacity is already fully booked by BMW, Stellantis, and Volkswagen. Module assembly has actually been running for over a year there, with more than 120,000 modules already produced (enough for about 30,000 EVs). The planned total capacity is 100 GWh with around 9,000 employees at full scale. For a company that's often framed as a "China only" story, this is a major move to localize supply in Europe and reduce geopolitical risk for their OEM customers.

Second, CATL and Changan Automobile unveiled what they're calling the world's first mass production passenger vehicle using sodium ion batteries. The battery is called Naxtra, and it achieves 175 Wh/kg energy density with a range exceeding 400 km. What really makes it interesting is the cold weather performance: it retains over 90% usable capacity at minus 40°C and can operate down to minus 50°C. That's roughly three times the discharge power of comparable lithium iron phosphate systems in extreme cold. Sodium doesn't rely on lithium supply chains at all, which matters given how volatile lithium pricing has been over the past few years. CATL spent nearly 10 billion yuan and developed around 300,000 test cells over a decade to bring this to market. The vehicle is expected to launch by mid 2026.

R&D spending hit 22.1 billion yuan in 2025 alone, and cumulative investment over the past decade now exceeds 90 billion yuan. Total production capacity reached 772 GWh with another 321 GWh currently under construction.

One thing I think is worth mentioning for investors here: CATL trades on the Shenzhen exchange (300750.SZ) as an A share stock, so most U.S. based investors can't buy it directly. It also doesn't appear in the top holdings of popular China tech ETFs like KWEB or CQQQ, which lean heavily toward Hong Kong listed and U.S. listed internet names. I recently came across CNQQ, which holds CATL at roughly 6% weight as its third largest position alongside other A share tech names like BYD, Zhongji Innolight, and Cambricon that you won't find in KWEB or CQQQ either. It seems to be one of the few U.S. listed vehicles that gives meaningful exposure to China's onshore hard tech sector rather than just the usual internet giants.

I think CATL is quietly becoming one of the most consequential companies in the global energy transition and it gets almost no airtime in this sub. Would love to hear how others are thinking about this space or if anyone has found other ways to get exposure.