Green Energy Technology Inc (綠能科技), the nation’s top solar silicon wafer maker, yesterday said shipments would be flat this quarter because the financial crisis had severely hurt demand for solar chips, slowed inventory digestion and led to price declines.
“This quarter will be another trying period for solar companies,” Green Energy president Lin Hur-lon (林和龍) said yesterday. “We have seen sales start to rise in March ... but visibility is still not clear.”
Shipments may hold steady this quarter compared with last quarter, but prices may slide further and hit bottom, Lin said.
He did not provide estimates.
Unlike growing signs indicating a recovery for the semiconductor industry as a whole, the outlook for the solar sector remained stagnant, Lin said, adding that chances of a recovery would have to wait until the second half of the year.
Some solar farm operators have faced financing problems as banks tighten credit and focused on their own problems amid the financial crisis. However, investment bank research seems to indicate that financing activities could recover in the second half following an improvement in the banking sector, Lin said.
Separately, Lin said the company was interested in building back-end capacity in China to tap into the growing market after Beijing launched a program this year to subsidize the use of solar energy at schools, hospitals and state-owned agencies.
Green Energy reported last Thursday that first-quarter net income had plunged 76.97 percent to NT$62.4 million (US$1.88 million), compared with NT$271 million a year ago, as demand shrank amid the financial crisis and an overcapacity-driven slump.
Revenues fell 15.62 percent year-on-year to NT$1.65 billion from NT$1.95 billion, it said.
Gross margin dropped to a record-low 7.6 percent last quarter, it said. A year ago, gross margin stood at 24.89 percent.
Green Energy plans to spend NT$2 billion on new equipment this year mostly for an 8.5-generation thin-film plant, down 23 percent from the NT$2.6 billion budgeted for last year. The company said it would consider increasing capital spending depending on market demand.
Shares of Green Energy climbed 3.67 percent to close at NT$113 yesterday, outperforming the benchmark TAIEX, which gained 2.93 percent.
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