Trina Solar announces third quarter 2012 results

Wednesday, Nov 21, 2012

CHANGZHOU, China, Nov. 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Trina Solar Limited (TSL) ("Trina Solar" or the "Company"), a leading integrated manufacturer of solar photovoltaic ("PV") products, today announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2012.

"Our third quarter sales were adversely impacted by the ongoing supply-demand imbalance in the global PV industry, high inventories and the irrational pricing practices by some competitors in the market," said Mr. Jifan Gao, Chairman and CEO of Trina Solar. "These factors contributed to declines in our average selling prices, despite cost improvements of our key materials. Higher historical costs of our inventory also contributed to the low gross margin and net loss in the third quarter. In response to this challenging operating environment, we focused our efforts on retaining quality customers and maximizing operating cash flow, which resulted in improvements in trade receivables and inventory balance from the previous quarter.

"As recently announced, we have also successfully implemented two major initiatives. During the third quarter, we conducted the restructuring of our global business into distinct modules and systems business units. We believe this will allow us to more efficiently manage operating costs for product development to address increasing PV solar end-use applications and geographic expansion, as well as to grow our project systems as a percentage of our total business. In conjunction with this restructuring, we performed a top-down review of our operations to reallocate and reduce our headcount and other operating expenses. These initiatives address current industry conditions as well as the shift in regional demand and changes to our customers' business models as a result of the increasingly attractive economics of solar energy for utility scale applications.

"We remain committed to improving the quality of our products, as well as our manufacturing process and performance. In the third quarter, we received the Carbon Footprint Verification from the British Standards Institute, which affirms that we comply with international best practices in carbon accounting, demonstrating our commitment to sustainable development. More recently, our commitment to quality was reflected by a certification from Underwriters Laboratories' ("UL") Client Test Data Program, which will allow Trina Solar to conduct UL-standard testing to accelerate market delivery of our latest technology-driven innovations and products."

About Trina Solar Limited

Trina Solar Limited (NYSE: TSL) is a leading manufacturer of high quality modules and has a long history as a solar PV pioneer since it was founded in 1997 as a system installation company. Trina Solar is one of the few PV manufacturers to have developed a vertically integrated business model that extends from the production of monocrystalline and multicrystalline ingots, wafers and cells to the assembly of high quality modules. Trina Solar's products provide reliable and environmentally-friendly electric power for a growing variety of end-user applications worldwide. For further information, please visit Trina Solar's website at www.trinasolar.com.

Source: Trina Solar Limited