Canadian Solar's 2Q earnings and revenue misses cast a shadow on shares

Shares of Canadian Solar Inc (NASDAQ:CSIQ) fell in premarket trade Tuesday after it reported second-quarter earnings and revenue that fell below estimates.

For the quarter ended June 2018, the Guelph, Canada-based solar power company posted earnings of US$0.26 per share on revenue of US$650.6mln. The results were lower than consensus earnings estimate of US$0.33 per share on revenue of US$715.1mln. Revenue fell 6% compared to the same quarter a year ago.

Shares of Canadian Solar fell 5.6% to US$12.82 in early trade.

The large solar power company, one of the biggest in the world, has operations in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Australia and Asia.

“Our second quarter revenue was affected by the deferral of several project sales as well as an industrywide lower average module selling price. The solar policy change in China effective on May 31, 2018 has caused a significant disruption in China, and the global solar industry,” said Canadian Solar CEO Shawn Qu.

“We also incurred a relatively large foreign exchange loss due to the depreciation of currencies in certain developing countries against US dollar during the quarter. However, we are confident we can navigate this challenging period given our proven track record even in prior periods of volatility,” he added.

The company said it “energized a large fleet” of solar power projects in China, Brazil, Japan and Australia. It also diversified its late-stage, utility-scale solar power project pipeline in new countries, including Malaysia.

The company said it expects third-quarter revenue of US$790mln to US$840mln. The current consensus revenue estimate is US$1.09bn for the quarter ending September 30, 2018.

Solar module shipments in the second quarter of 2018 were 1,700 MW, including 246 MW shipped to the Company’s own solar projects not recognized into revenue in the quarter, compared to 1,374 MW in the first quarter of 2018.

Contact Uttara Choudhury at [email protected]

Follow her on Twitter: @UttaraProactive 

Story by ProactiveInvestors