Canadian Solar sees 2013 shipments of up to 1.77 GW

Nov 13, 2013 - After posting a loss for the third quarter of 2013, Canadian Solar Inc (NASDAQ:CSIQ) today narrowed its full-year shipment forecast to 1.75 GW-1.77 GW from the previous 1.6 GW-1.8 GW.

The company, which makes photovoltaic (PV) modules in China and is also building solar parks globally, also guided for fourth-quarter shipments of between 480 MW and 500 MW. For comparison, third-quarter shipments for the company amounted to 478 MW after 455 MW in the second quarter of this year. Demand from China and Japan is expected to account for a significant portion of Canadian Solar’s sales for the last quarter of 2013. Sales to Europe are to remain low.

Canadian Solar also expects its gross margin for October-December to be somewhere between 13% and 15%. In the third quarter gross margin surpassed the company’s earlier guidance and reached 20.4%.

Both the shipments and gross margin projections from today do not include the possible positive effect from the planned sale of two Ontario solar projects, as Canadian Solar cannot be sure that acceptance testing at the sites will be completed prior to year-end due to the winter weather.

The company plans to keep work on its utility-scale project pipeline in order to further differentiate its business. “We have secured 1,015 MW of geographically diversified utility-scale project pipeline, which extends our visibility into our revenue, profitability and cash flow from the total solution business for the next two to three years,” said chairman and CEO Shawn Qu.

Canadian Solar turned to a net profit of USD 27.7 million (EUR 20.7m) in the third quarter of 2013 from a loss of USD 43.7 million a year ago. Revenue grew by 50.6% year-on-year and by 29.1% quarter-on-quarter to USD 490.9 million.

(USD 1 = EUR 0.746)

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