News Article
Aleo Solar Announces Positive Earnings For First Half
Positive earnings for the first half of the year but lowers revenue forecast because of falling prices
aleo solar AG announced that it generated revenue of EUR 232.0 million in the first six months of 2011. This means that aleo solar's revenue decreased by 16.2% compared with the first six months of 2010 (EUR 277.0 million). Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) came in at EUR 3.4 million (EUR 29.3 million), and the EBIT margin was 1.5 percent (10.6 percent). Earnings per share amounted to EUR 0.13 (EUR 1.68); production volume rose to 161.6 megawatts (132.8 MW).
"Compared to the extraordinarily strong demand of the previous year, demand in Germany was only moderate in the first half of 2011," says York zu Putlitz, CEO and CFO of aleo solar AG. "Additional installed PV capacity plummeted by over 50% in the months of March and April, for example, and an even steeper decline is anticipated for June."
In the first quarter, cell manufacturers' rigid pricing policies also prevented module prices from falling in tandem with feed-in tariffs at the beginning of the year.
"As in the first three months of the year, we largely compensated for the quiet business in Germany in the second quarter with growth on the international photovoltaic markets, which shows the success of our internationalisation strategy," zu Putlitz adds. aleo solar AG generated 49.9% of total revenue outside Germany in the first half of 2011, compared with just 17.8% in the first half of 2010. This lifted the company's international revenue from EUR 49.4 million in the first half of 2010 to EUR 115.7 million in the first six months of 2011.
The surplus capacity of solar cells and modules worldwide is currently putting huge pressure on prices. The increased returns that can be generated by operators of PV installations as a result of this are expected to boost demand in the further course of the year and stabilise prices. While unit sales of aleo modules are developing largely as planned, revenue is falling faster than expected. For this reason, aleo solar AG has revised its revenue forecast for 2011 downwards: instead of annual revenue of EUR 560 million, the company is now forecasting annual revenue of EUR 515 million.
