CHANGZHOU, China, Nov. 24, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — Trina Solar Limited (NYSE:TSL) (“Trina Solar” or the “Company”), a global leader in photovoltaic (“PV”) modules, solutions, and services, today announced its unaudited financial results for the third quarter of 2014.
Third Quarter 2014 Financial and Operating Highlights
“Both our module and downstream project businesses delivered good results in the third quarter of 2014, demonstrating our commitment to consistent revenue and profit growth for our core businesses,” said Mr. Jifan Gao, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Trina Solar. “Despite foreign exchange fluctuations and weaker demand in Europe, we continue to meet or exceed our financial and performance targets. Particularly, gross margin significantly exceeded management guidance. In the third quarter, we strengthened the competitive advantages of our module business with our efforts to reduce module manufacturing costs and our emphasis on technology breakthroughs generating positive results. We continue to leverage the synergies between our module and downstream business units and expect the resulting positive momentum to continue through the rest of this year and into next year.”
“The profitability of our core business grew in the third quarter. Our operating income increased 127% from the previous quarter, largely driven by growing demand from Japan and China. Our strategy to expand and diversify geographic markets continued to deliver good results this quarter. Sales in new and emerging markets represented almost 15% of our total shipments, demonstrating the success of our recent efforts to build a more comprehensive and diversified product distribution network covering more countries and regions.”
“We strive to remain at the forefront of technology improvements and innovations. We recently set several new records in module power output and solar cell efficiencies. Our researchers from the State Key Laboratory of PV Science and Technology have demonstrated a high-efficiency mono crystalline Honey Module with 60 cells (156mm x 156mm), which set a new world record for peak power output of 335.2 W. Our mono crystalline silicon Honey Plus, p-type (156mm x156mm) PERC record-setting cell reached an efficiency of 21.4%. To our knowledge, this is the highest efficiency ever demonstrated to date for a large-area PERC solar cell fabricated using a low-cost industrial PERC process. In addition, our multi-crystalline silicon cell (156mm x 156mm), also fabricated with an industrial PERC process, reached another world record in efficiency of 20.76%. These efficiency numbers have been independently measured by Fraunhofer ISE CalLab in Freiburg, Germany and set two new world records, which were previously held by the Institute for Solar Energy Research Hamelin and Q-cell, respectively. We expect them to drive performance improvements in our commercial PV modules.”
“We understand that the ultimate goal of our research is not just to increase solar cell efficiencies as high as theoretically possible, but rather to combine the increases in solar cell efficiencies with our innovative large-scale manufacturing process that will help us drive down costs and ultimately provide affordable and accessible solar energy to the world. We believe our investment in leading technology, product innovation and product diversification, together with our focus on superior quality and competitive cost structure, are recognized in the market and will continue to best position the company to increase sales and profit going forward.”
“In the third quarter we intensified our project development efforts. As a result, we successfully sold a 10.6 MW power plant in the UK at a good margin. We commenced construction of a 49.9 MW solar power plant in the UK and completed the construction of a 120 MW project in Jiangsu province in China. We also strengthened our downstream business in China and accelerated our expansion into southern China by engaging a strategic partner in Yunnan province. Additionally, we are making steady progress in our distributed generation (“DG”) business in China. For example, we completed and connected a commercial rooftop DG project in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, and currently have a number of new, small-scale DG projects under development. Given the highly dynamic downstream market in China, our emphasis is on evaluating project risks and conducting thorough financial return analysis prior to the development of the project. Despite a final decision not to proceed with a 130 MW utility project in Inner Mongolia due to the projected return being lower than expected and an adjustment to our downstream business strategy to respond to recent government policy changes, we remain optimistic and confident about the growth of our project pipeline and our ability to further capitalize on the strong momentum in China in the years ahead.”
