JinkoSolar Holding Co Ltd (NYSE:JKS) today reaffirmed its guidance for total 2018 solar module shipments of 11.5 GW-12 GW, with CEO Kangping Chen expressing optimism about the demand of the Chinese market despite recent policy changes.
For the second quarter of the year, JinkoSolar forecasts total solar module shipments to range from 2.4 GW to 2.5 GW, after shipping 2,015 MW in January-March 2018. The first-quarter (Q1) figure is down 18.8% from 2,481 MW in the fourth quarter of 2017 and 2.6% from 2,068 MW in Q1 2017.
Chen commented in a press statement that the newly-issued policies for the solar industry in China have affected market sentiment and the company’s average selling prices (ASPs).
“These new policies are aimed at increasing the pace of achieving grid parity, accelerating the removal of outdated capacity and releasing the pressure of new energy fund deficits. As a result, we expect to see a decline in prices across our industrial supply chain which will allow us to further cut both silicon and non-silicon costs during the second half of the year to offset the decline in the ASPs,” he said.
The CEO anticipates these policy changes to have a relatively limited impact on the company’s operations over the short term. According to him, overseas orders will account for some 80% of JinkoSolar’s total shipments for the entire year.
As per the company’s Q1 financial performance, net profit attributable to ordinary shareholders fell to CNY 3.6 million (USD 547,000/EUR 469,000) from CNY 22.5 million in the final quarter of 2017 and CNY 60.6 million in the first quarter of 2017. On a non-GAAP basis, the attributable net profit declined to CNY 11 million from CNY 41.5 million in Q4 2017 and CNY 80 million in Q1 2017.
Total revenues dropped by 28.1% quarter-on-quarter and 20.9% year-on-year to CNY 4.57 billion. Gross margin amounted to 14.4% in the first quarter of 2018, increasing from 11.6% in the fourth quarter of 2017 and 11.2% in the first quarter of 2017 mainly because of a decrease in silicon cost in January-March 2018.
As of end-March 2018, JinkoSolar had in-house annual silicon wafer, solar cell and solar module production capacity of 9 GW, 5 GW and 9 GW, respectively.
(CNY 1.0 = USD 0.152/EUR 0.130)
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Author: Takver. License: Creative Commons, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic.
