China’s four largest listed battery makers all reported higher revenue for the first three quarters of 2026, with growth between 45.78 and 63.08 per cent. Profit told a different story. EVE Energy grew net profit attributable to shareholders by 86.11 per cent. CATL’s third-quarter growth slowed to 14.54 per cent. Gotion High-Tech fell 66.48 per cent and Sunwoda fell 56.37 per cent.
The common thread is not price competition. It is geography. Building capacity in Europe is a bill paid years before the revenue arrives, and the three-way split in those profit lines is what that bill looks like on a quarterly report.
The export line is still rising
China exported 44.0GWh of power and storage batteries in September, up 64.5 per cent year on year and equal to 19.7 per cent of monthly sales. For the first half, exports reached 181.3GWh, up 42.5 per cent, or 18.5 per cent of total sales. Customs data shows lithium battery exports up 37.6 per cent over the same period.
Storage is taking a larger share of that growth as projects in Europe, the Middle East and Australia move into construction. Storage orders are larger per deal and cluster into delivery windows, which makes revenue recognition lumpier than for vehicle cells.
Rising export share also changes the risk profile. At close to one fifth of sales, European demand swings, policy changes and currency moves transmit into Chinese income statements far more directly than they did two years ago.
Why Gotion’s profit halved
Gotion grew revenue by more than 50 per cent and saw net profit fall 66.48 per cent. Its Goettingen plant in Germany is in volume production, and it has formed three joint ventures with Volkswagen’s PowerCo in Valencia in Spain, Surany in Slovakia and Kenitra in Morocco to build cell and cathode plants, with total investment of about EUR 3.22 billion, equivalent to roughly RMB 246.2 billion. A further RMB 891 million of mark-to-market losses on financial assets hit the quarter.
Sunwoda shows the same shape. Revenue up 45.78 per cent, net profit down 56.37 per cent, with the first phase of its Thailand plant in production, a second phase starting, and its Hungarian cell plant and Vietnamese consumer cell plant still under construction.
EVE Energy is the counter-example. Net profit up 86.11 per cent, adjusted profit up 111.38 per cent, and power cell shipments of 66.17GWh, up 91.30 per cent. Overseas build-out does not automatically suppress margin. Timing of capacity ramp, customer mix and cost control decide whether it does.
The map has three clusters
Hungary is the centre of gravity. CATL’s Debrecen site is the largest overseas power battery plant built by a Chinese company, with planned capacity of 100GWh and about EUR 7.3 billion of investment. Module production began in autumn 2024 and has reached 537,000 sets, while cell lines only entered trial production in September 2026, moving through equipment, process and personnel validation before full output. Sunwoda’s first European plant and CALB’s Hungarian capacity sit in the same country.
Three factors explain the choice: a central position radiating to Europe’s main vehicle markets, lower labour and land cost than Western Europe, and active government support for foreign investment. The decisive one is proximity to German OEM clusters.
Germany follows a different logic. Gotion’s Goettingen plant is in production and CALB’s German plant is reported profitable. Building beside the customer serves buyers with the tightest delivery radius and response requirements.
Southern Europe is the new frontier. CATL and Stellantis are building a 50GWh plant in Zaragoza, due to start production at the end of 2026, while Gotion and PowerCo plan 29.1GWh in Valencia with Gotion holding 49 per cent. Spain offers cheap green power, lower land cost and proximity to southern European assembly plants.
The compliance clock
Europe’s carbon footprint labelling and battery passport requirements are arriving on a fixed schedule, and they convert a battery shipment into a document set covering provenance, carbon intensity and recycled content. That is the real reason the industry is moving factories rather than containers, and it is why the profit dip in these nine-month reports is a capital allocation decision rather than a demand problem.
The window between spending and earning is the whole story. Whoever can finance that gap without losing the European customer will hold the European market, and the Chinese balance sheets currently carrying the heaviest construction losses are also the ones building the deepest local footprint.
Editor’s note: This is an adapted translation of the original Gasgoo report. It has been trimmed and restructured for readability for an international business audience. The full original (in Chinese) is at https://auto.gasgoo.com/news/202611/6I70477021C501.shtml.