Daqo New Energy’s profit drops 47.5% y/y in Q3 2015

Chinese polysilicon maker Daqo New Energy Corp (NYSE:DQ) on Wednesday posted a third-quarter (Q3) attributable net profit of USD 3.1 million (EUR 2.9m), down 47.46% in annual terms.

In the second quarter of 2015, the company reported an attributable loss of USD 926,000, while in July-September 2014 it booked a profit of USD 5.9 million. “Although polysilicon average selling prices (ASP) declined by approximately 6% in the third quarter as compared to the second quarter of 2015, we were able to return to profitability and expanded our gross margin, operating income and EBITDA in the third quarter, due to declining production cost and increase in production volume,” CEO Gongda Yao explained. By end-Q3, the firm had expanded its annual polysilicon production capacity to a total of 12,150 tonnes.

Daqo New Energy’s operating profit for the three months under review was USD 6.7 million, up from USD 1.2 million in Q2 2015 and down from USD 9.5 million a year back. Gross margin grew to 18.4% from 10.5% in Q2 2015, but fell from 24.5% in Q3 2014.

Total revenues climbed to USD 46.6 million from USD 34.3 million in Q2 2015. External polysilicon sales volumes increased by 67.1% quarter-on-quarter to 2,277 tonnes, but were partially offset by the lower ASP, the company noted. Of the total revenue figure, solar wafer sales account for USD 12.5 million as the company sold 19.1 million pieces during the three-month period.

For the fourth quarter, Daqo New Energy projects it will sell between 2,800 and 3,000 tonnes of polysilicon to external customers, as well as 20.5 million to 21.0 million pieces of solar wafers.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.937)

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