Revenue for the first nine months of 2010 at SolarWorld came close to reaching €1 billion for the first time as strong sales in Germany (60% of sales) and overseas (40% of sales), saw third quarter revenue reach €337.4 million. Overseas sales in the U.S. and Italy fuelled the overseas growth, the company said. However, sales were down in the quarter compared to sales of €383 million in the second quarter.
SolarWorld said that shipments of wafers and solar modules increased by 53% to 191MW, compared to the same period a year ago when shipments reached 125MW. Shipments for the first nine months of 2010, increased by 56% to 568MW.
“We have successfully used the growth in the international solar markets to strengthen our market positioning as a high quality manufacturer and to increase our shipments,” noted Frank Asbeck, chairman and CEO of SolarWorld AG. “Our production capacities were fully utilized in the past nine months, which is why we continue to expand them.”
SolarWorld noted that its new Solar Factory III in Freiberg progressed according to schedule and the first complete production line is expected to be delivered by the end of the year so that mass production can start in the first half of 2011.
During the third quarter SolarWorld started working on the second phase of the wafer production expansion, which would increase wafer production capacity in Germany amounting to 1GW.
Despite module price declines through the year, SolarWorld noted that in the first nine months of 2010, EBIT went up by 10.9% to €132.5 million, compared with the same period a year ago.
