Chinese firm GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd (HKG:3800) on Wednesday reported a profit from continuing operations of CNY 563.5 million (USD 82.6m/EUR 70.7m) for the first half of 2018, a drop of 59.4% on a year ago.
The photovoltaic (PV) materials supplier, which also operates 371 MW solar farms, had warned that its profit would fall by 60%-70% mainly due to lower wafer selling prices and an increase in finance costs and exchange loss. Finance costs in the six months rose by 39.1% to CNY 1.59 billion, and the exchange loss expanded to CNY 238.8 million from CNY 16.2 million a year ago.
Details of GCL-Poly Energy’s results in the period are available in the table.
Results from continuing operations in CNY million |
H1 2018 |
H1 2017 |
Revenue |
11,032 |
11,397 |
- of which from solar material business |
8,065 |
9,317 |
- of which from subsidiary GCL New Energy |
2,704 |
1,812 |
Gross profit |
3,327 |
3,736 |
Adjusted EBITDA |
4,671 |
4,615 |
- of which from solar material business |
1,979 |
2,860 |
- of which from subsidiary GCL New Energy |
2,458 |
1,646 |
Profit for the period |
563.5 |
1,389.5 |
Profit to owners of the company |
382 |
1,196 |
The company said it ranks first globally in terms of polysilicon and wafer production volumes. It produced 35,374 tonnes of polysilicon, of which 28,989 tonnes for internal use, and 13,239 MW of wafer.
GCL-Poly sold 5,237 tonnes of polysilicon and 12,098 MW of wafer, for year-on-year increases of 7.1% and 14%, respectively. The higher sales volumes could not offset the drop in the average selling prices (ASP) of both products. The polysilicon ASP per kilogram contracted to CNY 99 from CNY 103.4 in the first half of 2017, and the wafer ASP per watt fell to CNY 0.700 from CNY 0.891.
The company’s annual wafer manufacturing capacity stands at 30 GW, while its polysilicon production capacity amounts to 70,000 tonnes. The latter is to reach 115,000 tonnes by 2020, when a capacity expansion project in Xinjiang is to be finalised.
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