(Yicai) April 16 -- Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology and battery materials supplier Do-Fluoride New Materials have reported positive earnings for the first quarter, mainly driven by a sustained increase in terminal demand for lithium batteries since last year.

CATL’s net profit widened 49 percent to CNY20.7 billion (USD3 billion) in the three months ended March 31 from a year earlier, the Ningde-based company announced yesterday. Its operating revenue jumped 52 percent to CNY129.1 billion (USD18.9 billion).

The performance exceeded market expectations. For instance, AllianceBernstein and CLSA had predicted CATL to have achieved a net profit of CNY18.1 billion and CNY20 billion, respectively.

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, CATL’s first-quarter net profit fell nearly 11 percent from CNY23.2 billion in the fourth quarter of last year. However, this decline is considered a normal seasonal adjustment within the industry.

CATL yesterday also unveiled plans to establish a new energy minerals subsidiary, Times Resources Group Xiamen, with a registered capital of CNY30 billion, to further expand its reach into the upstream key raw material sector and integrate existing mining assets.

The company’s stock [SHE: 300750] jumped 4.4 percent to CNY450.14 (USD66.02) as of lunch break in Shenzhen today.

Do-Fluoride, a leading manufacturer of chemical products and raw materials, also released its first-quarter financial statement yesterday. It turned a CNY308 million (USD45.2 million) loss a year earlier into a net profit of CNY213 million, while expanding its operating revenue by 14 percent to CNY9.4 billion (USD1.4 billion).

The company attributed the turnaround to the fluctuations in raw material prices last year.

The price of Do-Fluoride’s core product, lithium hexafluorophosphate, plunged to CNY47,000 (USD6,890) per ton in July, pushing the entire industry into the red. However, the booming demand from the new energy vehicles and energy storage later in the second half boosted the price of lithium hexafluorophosphate to as much as CNY180,000 (USD26,400) per ton in December.

China’s sales of energy storage batteries soared 64 percent to over 1,700 gigawatt-hours last year from 2024, with related sales value more than doubling in the period, according to data from the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance.

The trend continued in the first quarter, when power and energy storage battery sales rose 53 percent to 437.1 GWh from a year earlier, with energy storage battery sales alone climbing nearly 112 percent, data from the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance also showed.

Do-Fluoride [SHE: 002407] was trading down 0.2 percent at CNY29.97 (USD4.39) as of lunch break in Shenzhen today.

Editor: Futura Costaglione