Canadian Solar gross margin dips to 10% despite increase in module price

Canadian solar

Canadian Solar announced that its revenue reached $1.42 billion (+28.5 percent) with gross profit of $143.9 million in the first quarter of 2018.

Canadian Solar said its gross margin fell to 10.1 percent from 19.7 percent in Q4 2017 and 13.5 percent in Q1 2017.

The sequential decrease in gross margin was primarily due to the low margin associated with the 309 MWp of U.S. solar power plants sold, partially offset by an increased module average selling price.

Canadian Solar said its operating expenses fell 29.9 percent to $65.7 million.

The company’s solar power plants in operation as of April 30, 2018 were approximately 948 MWp with an estimated resale value of $1.1 billion.

Its utility-scale solar project pipeline, including those in construction, totaled approximately 2.3 GWp, including 459 MWp in the U.S., 435.7 MWp in Mexico, 422.5 MWp in China, 351.3 MWp in Japan, 499.2 MWp in Brazil, 97.6 in Argentina, 24 MWp in India, 24.2 MWp in Australia, 18.4 MWp in Chile and 8 MWp in South Korea.

Solar module shipments in the first quarter of 2018 were 1,374 MW, compared to 1,831 MW in the fourth quarter of 2017, Canadian Solar said.

Canadian Solar expects to ship solar module of 1.50-1.60 GW, including approximately 100 MW of shipments to the company’s utility-scale, solar power projects in second quarter 2018. Canadian Solar aims for revenues of $690-$730 million with gross margin of 20-22 percent in the second quarter of 2018.

Canadian Solar CEO Shawn Qu said: “We expect a shift in global demand to developing markets to offset China, India and the U.S. We also expect demand in other markets to improve, including Europe, Africa, Argentina and Mexico.”