(Yicai Global) Sept. 27 -- China's Senior Technology Material plans to lift production at its electric vehicle battery separator units in Sweden to step up the pace of European market development.

Senior Tech will invest CNY872 million (USD122 million) to expand lithium-ion battery parts capacity and buy land and plants in Sweden, the Shenzhen-based company said late yesterday.

In September 2020, the leading Chinese supplier of battery separators and Northvolt agreed to spend CNY2 billion (USD279.2 million) to set up plants in Sweden and Germany to supply more than half of the products to the Stockholm-based battery maker.

The latest move, which is in line with Senior Tech's long-term development plan, will lay a solid foundation for partnerships with well-known European carmakers, the company noted, adding that it will further help to raise the production scale of European units.

Founded in January last year, Senior Material Europe, one of the two units involved, reported first-half revenue of CNY5.5 million (USD767.400), with a loss of CNY24.1 million (USD3.4 million), according to data released yesterday. The other Swedish unit is Senior Material Ultimate Holding Europe.

In March last year, Senior Tech and Northvolt signed a supply deal, per which the former will supply the latter with up to about CNY3.3 billion worth of lithium-ion battery separators. In the August, Senior Tech and penned a deal to supply South Korea’s LG Energy Solution with about CNY4.3 billion worth of materials for lithium-ion battery separators.

Senior Tech more than tripled its net profit to CNY368 million in the six months ended June 30 from a year earlier. Revenue soared 61 percent to CNY1.3 billion, with revenue from overseas business up 49 percent to CNY285 million.

Shares of Senior Tech [SHE: 300568] ended up 1.2 percent at CNY21.12 (USD2.95) each today. The benchmark Shenzhen Component Index climbed 1.9 percent.

Editor: Futura Costaglione