CATL, China’s largest electric-vehicle battery maker, plans to buy back between 20 billion yuan (US$2.95 billion) and 40 billion yuan (US$5.91 billion) worth of A-shares after reporting stronger first-half earnings.

Net profit rose 42%, and revenue increased 55%. The repurchased shares will be canceled.

CATL’s Shenzhen-listed shares rose as much as 5.4% on July 27 after the announcement.

The move follows CATL’s comments that strong demand for energy-storage systems helped lift first-half profit.

The company said energy storage is expected to keep growing quickly this year and next, even as domestic sales of new-energy passenger vehicles came under pressure in the first half.

CATL also said it was working to commercialize sodium-ion batteries, which do not use lithium.

The company introduced a sodium-ion energy-storage system last month and said it expected at least 10,000 electric vehicles to use its sodium cells this year.

CATL said sodium batteries produced at scale should have a cost advantage at current lithium carbonate prices, and that customers were very interested.

It added that its production lines could switch between lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg

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