Trina Solar 2016 Shipments Unlikely To Be Affected By Slowdown In China

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

---

Trina Solar, the world’s largest solar manufacturer, says it expects shipments to increase in 2016, even with a slowdown in China in the second half of the year.

The China-based solar manufacturer reports its first quarter 2016 results this week, and it was nearly good news across the board. Despite sequential decreases in most major measurements, the company’s year-over-year figures tell a much different story.

Total module shipments for the quarter were 1,423.3 MW, a quarterly decrease of 19.9% but an increase of 38.7% year-over-year. This trend continued through net revenues, gross profit, margin, operating income, and net income, which even with a 36.1% decrease on the fourth quarter of 2015, was an impressive 91.3% increase over the first quarter of 2015.

“This quarter was a good start to the year,” said Mr. Jifan Gao, Chairman and CEO of Trina Solar. “We posted strong year-over-year growth in major financial and operational metrics, particularly with revenue and net income up 46.4% and 91.3%, respectively. Total module shipments during the quarter increased 38.7% year-over-year to 1.42 GW, which was largely driven by demand from our key markets in the U.S., China, and India. Our shipments in Europe were up two-fold sequentially as a result of our strategic shift in Europe.”

Trina Solar expects to ship between 1.50 GW and 1.60 GW worth of solar PV modules in the second quarter, of which 40 MW to 50 MW will be shipped to the company’s own downstream projects.

It was the company’s own development business which provided the only negative for the company’s quarterly report. Though Trina Solar is insistent it will meet its yearly PV module shipment guidance of between 6.30 GW and 6.55 GW, the company downgraded its guidance for its own global solar power project connections to between 400 MW and 500 MW, down from the original guidance of 750 MW to 850 MW. This is due primarily to an expected slowdown in the Chinese market in the second half of this year.

“The China market will be weaker in the second half of the year,” Teresa Tan, Trina’s chief financial officer, said during a conference call. “However, the global market, including the US, Japan, and emerging markets like India, are going to be relatively strong.”