For the second quarter of 2014, the company expects to ship 600 to 630 megawatts of solar modules for total revenue in the range of $560 million to $590 million and gross margins of 17% to 19%. The revenue total is well below the consensus estimate of $633.64 million.
The company did not mention its full-year forecast, but at the end of the fourth quarter Canadian Solar said it expected revenues of $2.7 billion to $2.9 billion, compared with the consensus estimate of $2.88 billion. Last year’s total revenues came in at $1.65 billion.
This report is another disappointment for Canadian Solar shareholders. Shares posted their 52-week high in early March, just before the company reported fourth-quarter earnings. Since then the share price has fallen 43%. For the past 12 months the stock is up more than 275%, but that is a far cry from the 1,000% year-over-year comparison in early March.
Competitors JinkoSolar Holding Co. Ltd. (NYSE: JKS) is up almost as much — nearly 240% — and SunEdison Inc. (NYSE: SUNE) is up about 222% in the past 12 months.
Canadian Solar is counting heavily on its project pipeline in Japan. The company reported that it is working on 25 projects in the country with a total of 343 megawatts due to come online by 2016. The company said it expects to increase the total in its Japanese pipeline to 600 megawatts by the end of this year.
The company’s CEO said:
We are experiencing strong demand for our products in all key geographies and expect reasonably strong global market demand growth in 2014. We expect Japan, Canada, China, and the U.S., among others, to remain healthy markets for us through 2014.
Canadian Solar shares were down more than 7% in premarket trading, at $23.49 in a 52-week range of $6.90 to $44.50. Thomson Reuters had a consensus analyst price target of around $48.30 before these results were announced.
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