SHANGHAI/HONG KONG :CATL, the world's largest electric vehicle battery manufacturer, reported a 23.6 per cent drop in the first quarter profit on Friday, its first fall in two years, as it battles soaring raw material costs and a resurgence of COVID-19 in China.
That was down from 1.95 billion yuan profit a year earlier despite a big jump in revenue to 48.68 billion yuan from 19.17 billion yuan a year earlier. Other battery makers have reported lower earnings for the March quarter, hit by rising raw material costs and supply chain disruptions. South Korea's LG Energy Solution Ltd reported a 24 per cent quarterly profit drop earlier this week.
It said earlier this month it had secured exploration rights for a lithium clay deposit in the central province of Jiangxi in China and set up a joint venture in Indonesia for nickel mining.