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SolarWorld suffering from weak market

While SolarWorld may have slightly increased its solar module shipments from last year, revenue has dropped. Meanwhile, the company’s EBIT more than halved and consolidated net income suffered significant losses, leading to a lowered full year guidance.

SolarWorld may have a positive Q3 EBIT, but whether it can hold onto it in Q4 is questionable. Image: SolarWorld.

While SolarWorld has been busy filing its anti-dumping petition against the Chinese, the company’s financial figures have been deteriorating.

As such, although the company did manage to slightly increase its third quarter (Q3) 2011 shipments, from 191 megawatts (MW) in Q3 2010, to 195 MW, its revenues fell from €342.1 million, to €237.8 million.

EBIT, meanwhile, slipped from a respectable €49.8 million in Q3 2010, to €20.6 million in Q3 2011. As Goetz Fischbeck from BHF Bank pointed out, "… this reported figure includes €32m of windfall profits from the reversal of long term wafer contracts. Without this item SolarWorld would have reported a negative operating result."

He added, "Depending on the further price development in 4Q11 and 1Q12, it remains to be seen if SolarWorld will be able to continue to compensate operating losses through the penalty payments of its long term wafer customers."

Also in Q3, consolidated net income fell massively from  €19.9 million in 2010, to €-9 million in 2011.

In terms of the first nine months of the year, therefore, SolarWorld again managed to increase its shipments, from 568 MW in 2010, to 576 MW. Revenues, however, fell from €958.3 million to €772.9 million, and EBIT dropped from €133.6 million to €88.7 million, thus leading to a consolidated net income of €13.4 million (2010: €54.7 million).

Looking ahead to the end of the fourth quarter, while the company believes it will "easily" exceed revenues of €1 billion in 2011, it does not expect to meet its previous target of €1.3 billion.