How CATL came to dominate the EV-battery market, and how it has positioned itself to reap rewards from the coming boom in renewable energy.
Credit: Martin Schutt/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
In early 2017, employees of Chinese battery manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) received an email from their boss, asking: “Will pigs fly?”
Buoyed by government subsidies, CATL was growing quickly and doing well financially. But its CEO and founder Zeng Yuqun was worried even so. Invoking the Chinese allegory, ‘when the typhoon comes, pigs will fly’, he questioned what would happen when the ‘typhoon’ of state subsidies for the electric vehicle industry had blown through.
Yet fly CATL has. Between 2017 and 2020, its annual revenue increased two and a half times to $7.8 billion, while its share price is up by more than 130 percent over the past year giving it a market value of $190 billion. It now holds around one-tenth of the world’s lithium-ion battery manufacturing capacity, a proportion expected to expand further, according to commodities consultancy Roskill.
CATL’s customers include major vehicle manufacturers su
Exclusive longform investigative journalism, Q&As, news and analysis, and data on Chinese business elites and corporations. We publish China scoops you won't find anywhere else.
A weekly curated reading list on China from David Barboza, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Shanghai correspondent for The New York Times.
A daily roundup of China finance, business and economics headlines.
We offer discounts for groups, institutions and students. Go to our Subscriptions page for details.
A decade ago, China arrived on the global art scene with deep pockets and an abundance of swagger. Recently, however, China's economic downturn has caused a spate of museums to close and once prominent collectors to sell their collections. Can China ever achieve its dreams of "cultural self-confidence"?
The Harvard professor discusses the effects on Chinese society of the country's high-tech development, and how the pandemic may have shifted public attitudes.
The Global Intelligence Platform used by The Wire China
