Comtec Solar’s large-size wafer revenues rocket 732% y/y in H1 2015

Solar wafers. Author: Oregon Department of Transportation. License: Creative Commons, Attribution 2.0 Generic

China-based Comtec Solar Systems Group (HKG:0712) said Monday the production focus at its Malaysian plant has been moved to bigger monocrystalline solar wafers, due to an increase in both demand and prices.

In particular, the company’s revenues from the larger 156-mm x 156-mm wafers surged by 731.6% year-on-year to CNY 79 million (USD 12.4m/EUR 11m) in the first half of 2015, as shipments of the products ballooned by 688.7% to 48.9 MW over January-June 2014. This came as a result of strong demand from US sector player Mission Solar Energy LLC coupled with a 6.7% jump in average selling prices (ASP).

By contrast, 125-mm x 125-mm solar wafer revenues fell by 23.6% in annual terms to CNY 231.3 million during the period under review. Sales volumes went down by 11.6% to 146.7 MW, while ASP also declined 11.1% year-on-year. Consequently, the production capacity of the smaller-sized wafers was reduced, Comtec Solar explained.

Meanwhile, the company turned to an attributable net loss of approximately CNY 204 million in the first half of 2015 from a CNY-3-million profit a year back. The company blames the negative result mainly on impairment losses on advance to suppliers, share-based payment expenses and costs related to its Malaysian unit.

Details on the solar product maker’s performance during the first six months of the current year are available in the table below:

in CNY	H1 2015	H1 2014
Gross profit	14 million	43.5 million
Gross profit margin	2.5%	8.3%
Total revenue	556 million	520.4 million
Total wafer shipments	197.7 MW	190.1 MW