CATL Buys Back Shares and Expands Its Supplier Web as Automakers Reroute Orders

CATL repurchased A-shares and took a stake in Geely-backed Yaoning, but lost Li Auto's L8 and Xiaomi orders as its stock sits near a 52-week low.

CATL has moved to shore up its position on two fronts at once: buying back its own stock and deepening its involvement in China's battery supply chain, even as key customers begin steering business elsewhere.

The Shenzhen-listed battery giant confirmed a fresh stake in Chongqing Yaoning New Energy Technology Co., a Geely-backed venture currently building its own battery plant. China's State Administration for Market Regulation has cleared the transaction, which CATL is pursuing through a holding whose size has not been disclosed.

That deal lands in the middle of a difficult stretch for the company. Roughly two weeks ago, a cluster of setbacks — the revocation of the environmental permit for its Jianxiawo mine, a safety warning issued by CATL itself, and a production halt at its Debrecen facility — had already weighed heavily on the share price. Seen against that run of bad news, the Yaoning investment looks like an effort to lock down supply-chain influence while the ground shifts beneath it.

Customers Chart Their Own Course

The more troubling signal for CATL is coming from the order book. Li Auto has shifted every variant of its new L8 model to cells from Sunwoda, produced through a joint venture between the two companies, according to CnEVPost — a move that removes CATL from the supply chain for that vehicle entirely.

Xiaomi Auto is taking a similar path. As ChinaEVHome reported, the company has struck a strategic partnership with CALB and Sunwoda for an in-house battery project called "Longjia Battery," in which Xiaomi will set its own product specifications and take part in cell development.

Those defections hit a stock already under strain. Over Wednesday and Thursday of the previous week, the Shenzhen-listed shares shed roughly ten percent in total, driven by market rumors of possible production cuts in September and a potential drop in third-quarter per-unit profit. Worries about eroding market share — amplified by automakers diversifying their suppliers — added to the selling pressure.

A Buyback That Hasn't Yet Turned the Tide

CATL responded early this week by repurchasing its own A-shares on the Shenzhen exchange for the first time. The company bought 604,293 shares through the centralized bidding process, equal to about 0.0131 percent of current share capital. Prices ranged from 330.15 to 331.61 yuan per share, for a total of just under 200 million yuan excluding fees. A separate tranche of 604,300 A-shares, acquired on September 11 for roughly 200 million renminbi, is earmarked for cancellation.

The buybacks have yet to reverse the slide. At Thursday's close the stock sat at 304.30 yuan, just 1.8 percent above its 52-week low of 299.00 yuan — a floor set only that same day. Over the past 30 trading sessions, the shares have given up about 22 percent.

Washington Turns Up the Heat

Capital-market maneuvers are only part of the story. CATL is also drawing sharper scrutiny from US policymakers. Reuters reported that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a letter to Ford CEO Jim Farley last Tuesday expressing "deep concern" about Ford's business ties to CATL and other Chinese battery manufacturers. The move intensifies debate over whether Western automakers should decouple from Chinese battery suppliers — a narrative market watchers have already linked to the stock's recent decline.

CATL is countering with partnerships and new products. At IAA Transportation 2026 in Hannover on September 14, it unveiled TECTRANS II, a new battery solution for commercial vehicles. Eight days earlier, on September 6, it announced a strategic cooperation agreement with Taijin New Energy through its official WeChat channel.

The company's market capitalization stands at roughly EUR 195.16 billion — a figure that, despite the recent losses, still reflects its dominant position in the battery industry.

For investors, the picture is a split one. CATL keeps investing aggressively in its supply-chain footprint and using buybacks to support its share price, while its customer base frays at key growth models from influential automakers like Li Auto and Xiaomi. Whether the Yaoning stake actually opens new sales channels or merely offsets existing share losses will only become clear in the quarterly numbers ahead.