Shipments and revenues up in strong Q3 for Canadian Solar

Vertically integrated solar company Canadian Solar today announced its financial results for Q3 2017. Revenue, shipments and gross margin all came in above the company guidance.

Canadian Solar saw strong performance in its module manufacturing business, shipping 1.87 GW for the quarter, compared with 1.74 GW for the previous quarter. Revenue also rose to $912 million, 31% above the previous quarter, and 39% above the figure for Q3 2016. Canadian Solar cited continued demand from China and module hoarding in the U.S. as primary reasons for the increase.

In spite of the increased shipments and revenue, gross profit fell to $159.8 million from 167.8 in the previous quarter, and net attributable income fell to $13.3 million, from $38.2 million the previous quarter. For this, Canadian Solar blamed headwinds arising from the increased cost of polysilicon and aluminium production and the appreciation of both Chinese and Canadian currencies against the U.S. dollar.

“We responded by expanding on those manufacturing steps in which we have technology advantages, such as diamond wire sawing and black silicon solar cell,” explains Canadian Solar CEO Shaw Qu. “These efforts helped to partially offset the increase in raw materials costs.”

The company now expects to increase its wafer capacity from 2 GW to 5 GW by the end of 2017, and to grow its module capacity past 8 GW also by the end of the year.

Canadian Solar’s downstream business continued to grow throughout the quarter, with its portfolio of solar projects reaching 1.4 GW, and an estimated resale value of $2 billion. The company also has a late-stage utility scale pipeline totaling 1.6 GW, and completed several high profile project sales this quarter, as well as successfully listing a fund on the Japanese stock exchange.

Revenue predictions for Q4, for both the manufacturing and energy businesses, now stand at $1.77 billion, dependent upon finalization dates for certain transactions.