Continued Momentum In 2015 Forecasts “Bright” Future For JA Solar
Shanghai-based solar manufacturer JA Solar saw solid and continued growth through 2015 in revenue, sales, and operating margin, encouraging the company to expand its manufacturing capacity this year.
JA Solar published its Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2015 financial results this week, and though the company’s fourth quarter earnings fell slightly short of investors estimates, the company can still rest comfortably on solid, across the board growth. Total shipments for the fourth quarter were up 40.5% year-over-year to 1,366 MW, with 27.4 MW to the company’s own downstream projects. Shipments for the full year were similarly up, growing to approximately 4 GW, with only 53.3 MW going to its own downstream projects. 2015’s shipments were a modest 28.8% increase over 2014 shipments, which came in at 3.1 GW.
Net revenue for the fourth quarter was also up, reaching RMB 4.6 billion, or $709.3 million, an increase of 28.5% year-over-year and 20.3% over the preceding third quarter. Operating profit was RMB 260.1 million ($40.2 million), with a gross margin of 17.1%.
Net revenue for the Fiscal Year 2015 followed the trend, up 19.5% to RMB 13.5 billion ($2.1 billion), with a gross margin of 17% and operating profit of RMB 865 million ($133 million).
“Our fourth quarter results continued the momentum we built throughout 2015,” explained Mr. Baofang Jin, Chairman and CEO of JA Solar. “We exceeded our operating and financial objectives with shipment and revenue growth of 40.5% and 28.5%, respectively. We fulfilled strong demand across Asia, especially in China, but also made meaningful advances in North America. We remain committed to expand our market penetration globally, and have made progress in South, Central, and North America.”
“Our outlook for 2016 is bright,” Mr Jin added, who noted that JA Solar is expecting growth of over 30% this year. Specifically, JA Solar’s guidance for the first quarter of 2016 is shipments in the range of 1,000 to 1,110 MW, including approximately 100 MW to the company’s own downstream projects — a significant increase. Full year 2016 guidance is for shipments in the range of 5.2 and 5.5 GW, which is another significant increase.
Additionally, JA Solar is increasing its manufacturing capacity to meet this growing demand — increasing manufacturing capacity to 2.0 GW for wafers, 5.5 GW for cells, and 5.5 GW for modules by the end of 2016.
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