(Yicai Global) April 29 -- Gotion High-tech, China's third-largest new energy vehicle battery maker, saw its first-quarter net profit decline despite soaring sales amid rising raw material costs.

Net profit fell 33 percent to CNY32.2 million (USD4.8 million) in the three months ended March 31 from a year ago, the Hefei-based company said in a statement yesterday. Meanwhile, revenue more than tripled to CNY3.9 billion (USD586.6 million).

Last year, Gotion's net profit dropped 32 percent to CNY102 million (USD15.3 million) from 2020, the company said yesterday. Annual revenue jumped 54 percent to CNY10.4 billion (USD1.6 billion).

The Volkswagen-backed manufacturer has big targets this year. Its battery production capacity should exceed 100 gigawatt-hours in 2022, and triple by 2025, according to the statement. Last year, the firm's shipments doubled to 16 GWh.

Gotion was China's third-biggest NEV battery maker last year with its 11.2 percent market share, following Contemporary Amperex Technology and BYD. Its products were featured in almost 400,000 vehicles.

The Chinese firm has been gaining in popularity abroad. Last year, Volkswagen picked Gotion as its partner to develop a new "unified cell" technology applicable to most Volkswagen NEVs and build a factory in Germany. Volkswagen China Investment is Gotion's largest shareholder with its 26.5 percent stake.

Gotion has clients around the world. Last December, an overseas unit of Gotion reached an agreement with a big listed automobile firm in the United States, planning to provide the latter with at least 200 GWh of lithium iron phosphate batteries between 2023 and 2028.

In April 2019, the Chinese firm, also known as Guoxuan Hi-tech, penned a deal with Tata Group's automotive component manufacturing arm Tata AutoComp Systems to set up a joint venture in India to develop lithium-ion batteries in the Asian country.

The market is booming. Last year, China's NEV sales almost tripled to 35.2 million units from 2020, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. The country's market penetration rate of NEVs was 13.4 percent, ranking No. 1 worldwide for the seventh straight year.

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi