Q3 Earnings: Hanwha SolarOne Sees Another Disappointing Quarter
Chinese solar manufacturing company Hanwha SolarOne has announced disappointing third quarter earnings, blaming “prevalent industry trends” for the less than stellar report.
Total revenue for the third quarter was up on Q2’14 figures, increasing from $178.5 million to $195.2 million on an increase in shipments from 339.5 MW to 373.2 MW.
However, according to Seeking Alpha, the company missed both its “top line and bottom line expectations,” suffering a loss of $0.36 per share.
“Our third quarter results reflect the prevalent industry trends in place: record shipments due to strong demand, lower average selling prices reflecting an increasing proportion of business in China and the negative impact of a strong U.S. dollar in relation to the Yen and Euro,” said Seong-woo Nam, Chairman and CEO of Hanwha SolarOne.
“Our revenues improved over 8% quarter-to-quarter in spite of lower pricing. We achieved more than a 3% reduction in production costs quarter-to-quarter, which was not fully reflected in profitability due to the more rapid decline in product pricing.”
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2014 Guidance Nothing Special
Guidance for the following quarter is still promising, and the company’s stock hasn’t taken too much of a hit on the NASDAQ. Hanwha SolarOne is predicting module shipments between 400 and 425 MW in the fourth quarter, full-year completed shipments between 1.43 and 1.46 GW, and capital expenditures of $80 million.
“The outlook for the fourth quarter is good,” commented Seong-woo Nam. “We expect a new record in module shipments, stable to improving average selling prices due to strong module demand and tight supply, and an increase in the proportion of modules sold to higher-priced markets, such as the EU and U.S. We also aim to further reduce manufacturing costs, which should further increase profitability. We also expect to begin development of our first IPP project.”
Modest Accomplishments
“There were a number of accomplishments on the manufacturing front,” Seong-woo Nam added. “We began commercial production of our next generation S Series modules, fully automated a number of existing module lines, and made significant progress towards installing up to 500 MW of new capacity for both cells and modules. We continue to upgrade the manufacturing equipment at our ingot and wafer plant, which has improved efficiency and lowered costs.”
Hanwha Solarone doesn’t appear all that often in our coverage. However, a few weeks ago, the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition sent out its PV solar scorecard, registering Hanwha SolarOne as having a “cloudy” score.
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