China Sunergy Q1 Below Estimates; Repeats ‘09 View

China Sunergy (CSUN) this morning posted worse-than-expected Q1 results, but repeated its full year outlook.

For the quarter, the solar cell manufacturer posted revenue of $37 million, down 14.4% sequentially and 51.9% year over year, and short of the Street consensus of $37.5 million. The company lost 33 cents a share on an adjusted basis, worse than the Street consensus loss of 26 cents. The company shipped 23.9 MW of capacity in the quarter, up 69.5% sequentially, but down 0.4% year over year. Gross margin in the quarter was -23.7%.

“Although we reported a 69.5% sequential quarterly increase in solar product shipments to a more diverse set of customers, our existing inventory of high-cost wafers prevented us from taking full advantage of reduced upstream costs while our ASPs fell, leading to severe gross margin pressure and a net loss for the quarter,” the company said.

For Q2, the company expects to ship 35 to 40 MW of capacity, with gross margin in the low single digits.

For the full year, CSUN repeated its previous guidance for shipment of 150 to 200 MW of capacity, with gross margins of 15%-20%.

In pre-market trading, CSUN is down 29 cents, or 7.5%, to $3.58.