Chinese electric vehicle battery maker CATL on Tuesday projected an up to 47.1% increase in net profit to RMB 41.5 billion ($5.8 billion) in its financial year ending Dec 31. However, the year-on-year growth rate would be slowed to 9.2% over the last three months, compared with a 10.7% rise in the previous quarter and a 153.6% surge in the first half of last year. The battery giant was dethroned by BYD from the top spot in the more affordable lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery segment last year, as the latter led the shipment with a 40.4% market share compared with CATL’s 34%, figures from China Automotive Battery Innovation Alliance showed. The results were also partly due to a growing trend towards plug-in hybrids over the past year, which use both gasoline and electricity as fuel sources and therefore normally carry smaller batteries than pure EVs. China reported an 82.5% annual increase in sales of PHEVs last year, compared with a 20.8% growth rate in BEV sales, according to figures from the China Passenger Car Association. [TechNode reporting, Caixin, in Chinese]
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