Running at near full-capacity for the first time since 2010, JA Solar’s quarterly revenue for six consecutive quarters has basically flatlined.
The company reported net revenue of US$258.1 million for the second quarter of 2013, compared to US$273 million in the previous quarter, while quarterly revenue has not surpassed US$300 million for six consecutive quarters.
Baofang Jin, executive chairman and CEO of JA Solar said, “We were encouraged by our performance in the second quarter, with shipments exceeding the high end of our guidance despite the regulatory uncertainty in Europe. Our gross margin once again improved, benefiting from a combination of sustained cost reduction efforts and a more stable pricing environment. We also continued to exercise prudent management of our balance sheet, and posted strong operating cash flow.
Japan was once again a key revenue driver for us, and customers there continue to respond well to our high-efficiency product offering in spite of increased competition. We expect to benefit from further growth in the Chinese market, where the government recently increased its target to 35 GW of cumulative solar installations by 2015. We also made significant progress in accessing new markets such as Thailand and Australia,” added Jin.
JA Solar reported total product shipments of 463.7MW, consisting of 253.9MW of modules and module tolling, and 209.8 MW of cells and cell tolling, which was said to be above the high end of previous guidance of 430MW of product shipments and an increase of 4.7% from the first quarter of 2013.
The company said that Europe accounted for about 20% and the Americas accounted for about 8% of our total shipments, though the Americas were pointed-out for greater share in the future.
Higher utilization rates and less price pressure were behind JA Solar reporting a gross margin of 8.1%, compared to gross margin of 6.0% in the first quarter of 2013 but its net loss increased to US$21.6 million, compared to US$13.7 million in the prior quarter but still lower than losses in the fourth quarter of 2012 of US$79.5 million.
JA Solar reported a gross profit of US$21.0 million, compared with a gross profit of US$16.3 million in the first quarter of 2013.
The company guided total cell and module shipments to be in the range of 450MW to 470MW for the third quarter of 2013 with its full-year guidance unchanged at 1.7GW to 1.9GW.
