Preliminary first quarter financials published today by Germanys SolarWorld have revealed that the company increased its shipments year-over-year by 62% for the first three months of 2016.
A total of 341 MW was shipped in Q1, up from 210 MW last year, with strong growth in the U.S. and German markets cited as a reason for the increase. Further, the company won orders for large-scale solar projects in France, the U.S. and Sri Lanka, which helped to boost shipments.
However, due to currency fluctuations, the firms profits for 2016 were suppressed in relation to shipments, with earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) "almost stable" at 2.1 million ($2.4 million), down from 2.9 million ($3.3 million) in Q1 2015.
According to SolarWorld, currency results were 13.3 million ($15.2 million) below last years Q1, but adjusted for the fluctuation in the euros value, EBITDA would have amounted to 6.9 million.
Losses narrowed in Q1, falling to -4.9 million ($-5.6 million), and looking ahead to the second quarter SolarWorld has an order backlog of 540 MW and liquid funds of 182.7 ($210 million) at the ready, which is slightly less than the company had to hand at the same point last year.
The companys forecast for 2016 reveals that shipments are projected to increase by more than 20%, besting last years 1.159 GW, while consolidated revenue is equally expected to grow at a similar rate. SolarWorld hopes to reach 1 billion in revenue for 2016.
Over the course of 2015, the company's shipments grew 36%.
Popular content
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Share
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.