In a statement today, Trina Solar has revised down its module shipment forecasts for Q2 from 430 to 450 megawatts (MW) to 395 to 397 MW. The companys overall gross margins figures were also revised down from the low 20 percent to 17 to 17.5 percent.
Indicating that the decline in the Italian market, as a result of regulatory changes there, was to blame, Chairman and CEO Jifan Gao said that he expected the results to rebound. "We expect a significant improvement in production costs and an increase in shipment volumes in the third quarter."
In May this year, Trina Solar also revised down its quarter one (Q1) guidance, also by a similar amount of around 30 MW.
Despite the downward revisions, Trina Solar does however expect to meet previously stated full year 2011 photovoltaic module shipment targets. The company forecasts shipments between 1.75 to 1.80 gigawatts (GW), which is an increase on 2010 levels of 54.6 to 70.3 percent.
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The company also reports that demand from European and North American utility scale customers should improve as the year progresses.
Trinas performance follows trends
Last month two pieces of research from market analysts predicted similar trends. IMS Research reported pressure on manufacturing gross margins, as companies compete for market share by reducing prices. Last week Solarbuzz produced a number of downstream market reports that tracked the shift in demand from Europe to the North America and the Asia-Pacific markets.
Trina Solar was named yesterday as one of the primary beneficiaries of the Chinese Government's national FIT program.
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