Solar company Yingli posts unexpected loss
Fri May 22, 2009 2:47pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Chinese solar power company Yingli Green Energy reported an unexpected quarterly loss and cut its forecast for full-year sales, sending its shares down 9 percent.
The company also said its margins would widen as prices for solar products bottomed out, but irked investors by providing few specifics on pricing.
Yingli was the latest maker of photovoltaic solar products to post weak earnings as tight financing markets slowed the flow of funds to build new clean-energy systems.
"We believe the first quarter marked a low point for the whole industry this year, Yingli Green Energy included," Chief Executive Liansheng Miao told a conference call.
The Baoding, China-based company posted a loss of $20.7 million, or 16 cents per American depositary receipt, compared with a year-earlier profit of $31.9 million, or 25 cents per share.
Analysts, on average, had forecast a profit of 1 cent per share, according Reuters Estimates.
Revenue fell 37 percent to $146.3 million.
The company said it expected to ship 450 to 500 megawatts of solar modules, down from the 550 to 600 MW it had forecast in February.
Like other solar makers, Yingli said it would see further declines in the average selling prices (ASPs) for solar products in the second quarter, but prices would be flat in the third quarter. Still, the company did not give specifics on pricing, causing concern for at least one analyst.
"While expanded gross margins are certainly promising as they reflect (Yingli's) ability to drive down its blended polysilicon costs, we are acutely concerned with the increasing lack of disclosure surrounding ASPs and volumes," Simmons & Co analyst Burt Chao said in a note to clients.
Shares of Yingli, which had surged 65 percent so far this year, fell 71 cents, or 7 percent, at $9.40 at mid-afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange.
source: http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE54L3CP20090522
Yingli Green Energy
中国英利，位于河北保定的一家光伏产品制造商
bottom out
if a situation, price etc bottoms out, it stops getting worse or lower, usually before improving again
tight financing markets
指金融市场银根紧，难以借贷到资金
American depositary receipt/ADR
美国存托凭证，由美国存托银行发行，代表该银行持有的某外国公司股票的存托凭证。ADR以美元计价并像其他股票一样交易，便利了投资者在国际范围内分散他们的投资。
(price would be) flat
a flat rate, amount of money or price etc is fixed and does not change or have anything added to it