Canadian Solar´s (CSIQ, Financial) stock lost about 3.5% in Monday trading after the company reported second-quarter loss of 15 cents on revenue of $692.37 million, beating profit estimates by 1 cent per share and revenue expectations by $69.55 million.
Revenue in the second quarter was $692.4 million, up 2.3% from $677.0 million in the first quarter and down 14.1% from $805.9 million in the same period of 2016. Further, gross margin was 24.2%, compared to 13.5% in the first quarter of the year and to 17.2% in the year-ago quarter. In the next table, we can appreciate the geographical distribution:
| Â | Second-Quarter 2017 | Second-Quarter 2016 | ||
| Â | Millions of $ | % | Millions of $ | % |
| The Americas | 150 | 21.7 | 383.9 | 47.6 |
| Asia | 452.7 | 65.3 | 318.4 | 39.5 |
| Europe & Others | 89.7 | 13 | 103.6 | 12.9 |
| Total | 692.4 | 100 | 805.9 | 100 |
Dr. Shawn Qu, chairman and CEO of Canadian Solar, said, "Second quarter was a solid quarter with solar module shipments, revenue and gross margin all coming in above guidance. We continue to make progress with respect to the monetization of our operating solar power plants in the U.S., Japan, Brazil, China and the U.K. We have entered into exclusive discussions with the winner of the binding bids submitted for 703 MWp of our U.S. solar power plant assets and expect to finalize the sale over the coming months. Separately, in July, we completed the sale of an additional 281 MWp solar power projects, which are still in construction in the U.S. In Japan, we are on track to launch a JREIT listing in the near future, with an initial portfolio of 65 MWp of solar power plants."
In the second quarter, total operating expenses were $84.1 million, selling expenses were $39.3 million, general and administrative expenses were $53.0 million, research and development expenses were $7.3 million and other operating income was $15.5 million.
Guidance for the third quarter is solid with the company expecting total solar module shipments to be in the range of 1.65 to 1.70 gigawatts including approximately 86 MW of shipments to the company's utility-scale solar power projects that may not be recognized as revenue in that trimester. Total revenue is expected to be in the range of $805 million to $825 million and gross margin about 15% and 17%.
Disclosure: The author holds no position in any stocks mentioned.
