Source | Yuan Auto

Thanks to big data and our supportive readers, our previous article on Sunwoda garnered over 100,000 views a few days ago (link: After Compensating Geely Hundreds of Millions, Sunwoda Stands Even Taller). Today, let's continue the conversation by focusing on CALB, a company that has been frequently mentioned alongside Sunwoda lately.

If Sunwoda, which started the year with a 'minor compensation' of hundreds of millions but was later chosen by Li Auto and Xiaomi as a strategic power battery supplier for two leading car companies in the latter half of the year, can be seen as a blend of strength and fortune, then CALB's business success is equally remarkable.

After all, the 'black swan' event CALB encountered this year is one of the most significant of the year.

01

Disruptions Don't Hinder Increased Collaboration with Li Auto and Xiaomi

According to official announcements from companies (as listed on the Tianyancha APP), some GAC Aion S vehicles, equipped with CALB's 177Ah lithium iron phosphate batteries for commercial use, experienced battery failures. These vehicles required returning to service centers for inspection, and GAC Aion and CALB offered free repairs or battery pack replacements based on the inspection results.

Although GAC Aion and CALB have not disclosed the exact number of Aion S vehicles affected by battery failures, for this 'king of ride-hailing' with sales in the hundreds of thousands, even a small percentage of battery failures represents a significant event in the industry.

Following conventional expectations, CALB might have chosen to keep a low profile after the incident. However, its position as a leading company among second-tier battery manufacturers prevents it from doing so.

On September 4, Xiaomi Auto officially announced that CALB and Sunwoda had become its strategic partners simultaneously. Among the four new Xiaomi Pengcheng models launched on September 7, except for the entry-level Xiaomi Pengcheng N70 Pro, the other three higher-end models all used batteries co-developed by Xiaomi and CALB.

By September 9, the latest 411th batch of the 'Road Motor Vehicle Production Enterprises and Products Announcement' released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology revealed that Li Auto had newly declared two Li Auto i6 models equipped with CALB batteries. As Li Auto's top-selling model over the past year, the Li Auto i6 previously used CATL and Sunwoda as battery suppliers, but after the facelift, CATL will at least temporarily step aside.

'Given Li Auto's current annual battery installation volume of tens of billions of yuan, selecting two high-quality companies for contract manufacturing of self-developed battery cells is crucial for the safety and stability of large-scale production supply,' explained Li Xinyang, head of Li Auto's product line, when discussing why the Li Auto i6 chose CALB and Sunwoda as battery suppliers.

To a certain extent, the popular new models associated with CALB are even more numerous than those associated with Sunwoda.

It's worth mentioning that several major new models under Huawei's Harmony Intelligent Mobility, such as the Shangjie Z7 series and Zhijie RX, have also chosen CALB as their battery supplier. At the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Auto Show in May this year, CALB and Harmony Intelligent Mobility jointly showcased the Whale Battery Platform they co-developed.

From the perspective of consumers and even general investors, CALB's continuous association with Xiaomi and Li Auto's flagship new models will significantly mitigate the negative impact of the GAC Aion S battery quality incident. Even die-hard fans of Xiaomi and Li Auto may become advocates for CALB in response to negative public opinion.

Considering that CALB's cooperation with Xiaomi and Li Auto likely began in 2024-2025 but only commenced mass production after the quality incident, this timing has certainly worked in CALB's favor to some extent.

02

With the Halo Effect, Can the Plummeting Stock Price Be Turned Around?

Before Xiaomi and Li Auto, CALB was primarily known in the market for its cost-effectiveness.

As a battery supplier with a market share that is neither at the top nor the bottom, CALB's core customers include GAC and Xpeng. Both GAC Aion and Xpeng currently focus on family cars priced under 150,000 yuan.

Now, standing alongside Xiaomi and Li Auto, CALB will quickly establish itself in the 200,000-300,000 yuan new energy vehicle segment.

For reference, the Li Auto i6 starts at 249,800 yuan and has consistently ranked in the top 7 of monthly passenger vehicle sales, including fuel-powered cars, without any qualifiers. The Xiaomi Pengcheng model equipped with CALB batteries starts at 239,900 yuan and secured 10,000 orders within 4 minutes of the full series going on sale.

If relying on relatively higher-end cooperation models can increase the gross profit margin, perhaps CALB's operational quality can reach a new level.

According to CALB's first-half performance announcement released on August 28, the company achieved a 65% year-on-year increase in revenue and a 102.2% increase in profit compared to the same period in 2025, with a period profit of 1.523 billion yuan. CALB attributed this double-digit growth in revenue and profit to the rapid increase in shipments of power battery and energy storage system products.

It's worth noting that CALB's energy storage system products grew significantly faster than its power batteries.

However, there are still some concerns in CALB's otherwise promising half-year performance announcement. For example, the gross profit margin, calculated by dividing current gross profit by revenue, was 16.71% in the first half of this year, compared to 17.53% in the first half of 2025.

Although the performance announcement does not attribute the decline in gross profit margin to specific businesses such as power batteries or energy storage systems, increasing the proportion of battery shipments for models priced above 200,000 yuan is expected to be one of CALB's strategies to improve its gross profit margin.

Demonstrating a healthier and more promising profitability status may be the key to reversing CALB's stock price decline.

Data shows that CALB's stock price reached a high of HK$39.3 per share in April this year but has since continued to decline, closing at HK$16.92 per share on September 11, a cumulative decline of more than 50%. Even the performance announcement released on August 28 failed to reverse CALB's stock price decline, with a single-day drop of over 4% on the first trading day after the announcement.

To break through in an industry facing overcapacity and continuous price wars, CALB must first seize opportunities and avoid any missteps with a series of major new models from Xiaomi, Li Auto, and even Harmony Intelligent Mobility. Secondly, CALB can continue to expand its customer base and scale, especially with overseas giants that have already secured cooperation, such as Toyota, Hyundai, and Volkswagen.

With its recent good business fortune, CALB's potential should not be underestimated.

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